Chapter One
SHIP'S GYMNASIUM, TRIAD HUNTERSHIP
VAXXAR"Captain, we have a problem."
It took a moment for Sass, toweling the sweat off her face, to acknowledge the comment voiced by the tall woman striding down the locker room aisle toward her, her black and tan Alliance uniform partly obscured by a blue lab coat, her shoulder-length blond hair uncharacteristically mussed.
Captain. Gods' blessed rumps, after five and a half months of being called "commander," she finally had her rank back. That was the only good news Admiral Branden Kel-Paten gave out during the senior staff meeting earlier–though the definition of "captain" on board the
Vaxxar was, in Sass's opinion, still up for grabs.
However, Sass had a feeling that the admiral's announcement–at that same meeting–of the
Vaxxar's departure from Lightridge Station within the hour was solely responsible for the grim expression on Doc Eden Fynn's face.
"You've given Lightridge some decent leads–"
"Leads?" Eden came to a halt in front of her, then flung her arms wide in exasperation, narrowly missing smacking her hand on a metal locker door. "People are dying of
fright in the space lanes, Tasha. No one knows how or why. And now we have eighty-seven more dead bodies exhibiting abnormally high levels of dopamine and serotonin."
The deaths on the freighter
Degun's Luck were the sixth such incident in Triadian space in the past four months. Lightridge had promptly alerted Alliance HQ, requesting a forensic medical team. The
Vaxxar, chasing down reports of an Illithian mother ship in the sector, had been diverted to Lightridge, pending the team's arrival. But only temporarily.
Sass draped the towel around her neck. Three of the dead were Zingarans, Eden's people. That only made the incident worse for the CMO. "The med team from HQ arrives in ten hours. They're best equipped to handle this. We're a huntership, Eden. We need to be out there stopping the Illithians from breaching our borders, not sitting on station performing autopsies."
Eden didn't seem to hear her. "I'm the only empathic doctor to come on scene in the first thirty hours after one of these incidents. There are still emanations. But I need time to work with them. Only now
he pulls us off Lightridge. All because some damned pirate-turned-informant decided to go on an unscheduled vacation!"
"That damned pirate was gathering intelligence on the Illithians," Sass pointed out. "HQ and the admiral feel it's imperative we locate him." Border breaches and a missing undercover operative did not make for a happy Admiral Kel-Paten. Sass figured that was why he denied Eden's request to stay behind on Lightridge. He needed Eden's expertise when they captured Jace Serafino. Sass just wasn't sure if he was referring to Eden's empathic talents in discerning falsehoods or her medical ones in putting Serafino back together after the admiral wiped the floor with him. Their mutual animosity went back years.
It was years as well since Sass had seen Serafino. He was a charming rogue, always hip-deep in some kind of trouble. According to the staff briefing, he had changed little.
But Tasha Sebastian–the woman Serafino knew as Lady Sass–had changed. Though she
prayed he wouldn't remember her. She didn't need Admiral Edmonds's warning ringing in her mind to know that there were parts of her past that the Triad–and especially Kel-Paten–must never know.
"Since he won't grant the medical investigation critical-mission status," Eden was saying, "then I'm asking for a two-week leave of absence. It would take me only six hours to get back there by shuttle."
They were still in the inner-system lanes and at sublight speed. A shuttle launch would slow them down twenty, thirty minutes at most.
If Kel-Paten agreed to it. And he might, if Sass couched it in the proper terms. For all of Kel-Paten's aggravating qualities–and they were legion–he encouraged her input. Sass enjoyed testing the depths of his cybernetically perfected mind. His cybernetically perfect form wasn't half bad either, she grudgingly admitted. Except for his attitude and that damned perpetual scowl . . .
But she'd brave that for Eden, even though she wasn't thrilled with the idea of losing her CMO–and closest friend–for two weeks. "Let me see what I can do." Her comm link trilled as if to punctuate her words. It took her a moment to find it under her towel, clipped to the neck of her pink workout shirt. "Sebastian."
"My office. Five minutes." The admiral's familiar deep voice brooked no argument. She wondered what crisis he uncovered–again–to occupy what was left of her free time.
But, hell, she'd just agreed to talk to him on Eden's behalf.
"By your command, sir." Sass clicked off the link and caught Eden's wry grin. "What?"
"Good shirt."
Sass looked down.
My name's No, No, Bad Captain! What's Yours? was clearly visible now that she'd removed her towel. She grinned back as she tossed the towel into a nearby hamper, remembering the day her officers on the
Regalia gave her the pink T-shirt. Remembering more the wide-eyed expression on Kel-Paten's face the first time he saw her wearing it as she left the
Vax's gym. Gods, she so enjoyed rattling his cage.
"Want to try double-teaming him?" she asked, heading for the door.
Eden fell into step with her. "He can dock my pay for the cost of the shuttle fuel if–"
The red-alert sirens erupted as the corridor doors slid open, stopping Eden in mid-sentence.
Damn. What now? Sass flicked on her comm link. "Sebastian to bridge. Status, Mister Rembert."
"Incoming interstellar thermal wave. Eight-point-two on the Graslan scale. McAbian residue readings–"
"On my way! Sebastian out."
Sass bolted down the wide gray corridor for the lifts, her heart pounding. She didn't have to hear the residue reading figures. An 8.2 Graslan wave was more than enough to tear a huntership the size of the
Vaxxar apart.
Oh, gods. Tank. She stepped into the lift, gave the command for the bridge deck, and tapped her comm link again. "Sebastian to captain's quarters. Tank. Kennel, now!"
She knew her voice would sound in her quarters. She prayed her black and white fidget wasn't sleeping so deeply he couldn't hear it. No, he'd be awake. The sirens would have accomplished that. Chances were good he'd clambered into the small safety pod even before she barked out the order. The pod was rigged to dispense one of his favorite treats when it sensed his presence inside. The fidget might not understand emergencies, but he was never one to miss a meal.
"Bridge," the tinny autovoice announced.
She lunged out of the lift, almost colliding with a tall, dark-haired man in a black Triad uniform. Kel-Paten. He slanted her one of his infamous scowls before guiding her through the double sliding doors that led to the upper level of the bridge.
The two-tiered, U-shaped command center of the huntership was already frenzied with activity, black-uniformed senior officers moving efficiently from station to station, specialists glued to their chairs but swiveling quickly as new information downloaded to a nearby screen. Voices were terse, commands clipped. Every screen streamed with data.
Kel-Paten released her arm. "You're out of uniform."
She was also off duty, but the possibility they were at death's door prevented her from reminding him of that fact. She offered him a brief "noted" as she headed for the closest scanner station to check incoming data.
What Sass saw on the screens wasn't pretty, but they had time. Five, maybe ten minutes to try some fancy dancing that could either save their lives or send them to their graves in infinitesimal pieces. She glanced over her shoulder. Kel-Paten slid into the left command seat. She watched as, with a practiced familiarity, he thumbed open a small panel covering the dataport in the armrest and linked into the ship's systems through the interface built into his wrist. He frowned slightly, then his eyes flared with that eerie, luminous hue that signaled his cyber systems were at full power. He was spiked in, as much a part of the huge huntership as the drives, scanners, and bulkheads.
Except, unlike the drives, scanners, and bulkheads, he could talk.
She turned back to her console, knowing he could hear her just as well from there as if she were seated next to him.
"Admiral, my data shows a major energy disturbance at oh-five-seven-point-four."
"Oh-five-seven-point-four-three-two," the voice through her comm link stated. "No damage from preliminary residual shock waves. Ship integrity is sound. Secondary waves–"
"Damn!" Sass swore as she was thrust abruptly sideways. She clung to the wide console with both hands and considered sitting down and strapping in.
"Forward shields down to eighty-five percent," a crewmember's voice announced below her.
She opted to remain standing, working at the console. Kel-Paten was no doubt eons ahead of her calculations in his inner journey through the data, but he looked for the known, correlating and synthesizing, while she looked for the unexplainable. Granted, his cybernetically enhanced thought processes were a million times faster than hers, but he was linear, where her analysis tended to do pirouettes and somersaults.
"Tell me what we
don't have, Kel-Paten," she said tersely under her breath, forgetting for a moment that–spiked in–he could hear her. The huntership shuddered as ano...
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