Shades of Treason (22 page)

Ash’s posture screamed that she was on the verge of fight or flight. In most people, that instinct was triggered by fear. In anomalies—in Ash—it was triggered by the overwhelming desire to accomplish her mission. But the loyalty training had screwed with her logic. It made a threat of something that wasn’t likely to happen. The Coalition had weathered dozens of storms in its history. It would survive whatever was revealed in the files.

Her eyes darted toward Kalver. The other anomaly stood there listening to their words and watching their body language. Rykus wanted to move closer to Ash, place a reassuring touch on her shoulder, but he already felt he was revealing too much.

“You won’t survive without help,” he said, forcing himself to keep a distance between them. Then he lowered his voice and added the words that he knew would reach her. “You won’t avenge them without help.”

Her eyes turned glassy. He was an ass for using her teammates against her, but she needed to see reason.

“I encrypt the transmission,” she finally said.

He hesitated. Ash had an arsenal of encryptions she could put on the transmission, but so did Kalver, and Kalver wouldn’t defy him and put a lockout code on the cuff. Ash could do that in seconds, and they’d be back to where they were now, on the run and cut off from help and information.

But if he didn’t allow her the chance to encrypt it, she would run. She wouldn’t get far, but he’d lose any chance of her trust, any chance of her cooperation. She’d fight him every step of the way, and the only way he would get her help would be by force.

He filled his lungs with air, then exhaled. The fall down the DFC must have damaged his brain, because he was going to take the chance. He nodded to Kalver, and the other man handed Ash his comm-cuff.

The suspicion in Ash’s eyes transformed into surprise. She regained control of her expression quickly, then took the comm-cuff without looking away from Rykus. She was expecting a trick or a trap.

Folding his arms, he leaned against a tree, outwardly calm and unworried.

Ash’s mouth tightened. Then she lowered her head and tapped commands into the cuff. When she finished, she tossed it to him. He caught it, then leisurely looked at the screen. The symbol in the upper left corner indicated it was encrypted and ready to send a transmission.

“Two minutes,” Ash said.

“No problem,” he replied smoothly, but he had to force his grip on the cuff to relax. Two minutes to convince the admiral that Ash was innocent and telepaths existed. No problem at all.

He tapped in Bayis’s personal ID code.

Twenty goddamn seconds passed, seconds that counted. He could see them ticking by in Ash’s head.

The cuff chimed when the security parameters were accepted, and Admiral Bayis’s face filled the screen. “Commander.”

“We have one minute,” Rykus said. “I’m with Lieutenant Ashdyn—”

“War Chancellor Hagan,” Bayis cut him off. “What happened?”

The interruption took him off guard. “He survived the crash. Ash—”

“I’m being told he needs a body bag.”

He felt Ash’s gaze. He didn’t look away from the cuff. News of Hagan’s death had reached Bayis capsule-quick, but that didn’t mean the admiral was compromised. “I want to know why Predators attacked us.”

Bayis’s right eye twitched. “Predators?”

“Within minutes of coming to ground, two birds attacked the crash site. Hagan was with us. He was injured but in good condition. We—”

“The Predators were sent to eliminate Saricean survivors. Three of their Black Wings kissed the dirt.”

“
We
were attacked,” Rykus said, conscious of the time ticking by. “Check our crash site.” The fact that Bayis hadn’t done so already indicated how chaotic things were.

Rykus was about to add another level of chaos.

“After we left the site, Ash was able to communicate with Hagan. Sir… Admiral, she communicated with Hagan telepathically. She didn’t murder her teammates. She didn’t betray the Coalition. She hasn’t been able to deny the charges brought against her because she can’t speak out loud about her mission or what was done to her. And until he communicated with Ashdyn, Hagan hadn’t known he’d been telepathically influenced as well.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he heard how ridiculous, how impossible, they sounded. The lack of reaction from Bayis signaled it too, and Rykus suppressed a curse. With Hagan dead, Ash still telepathically handicapped, and the Sariceans’ files encrypted, he had zero evidence to support his claim. Zero.

“Is your judgment impaired, Commander?” Bayis’s question wasn’t laced in sarcasm or disdain. It was a search for an explanation, for a reason why his friend would so desperately grasp at the stars.

“I didn’t create this explanation,” he said. “War Chancellor Hagan did.”

“You’ve always had issues with him. You’ve had public arguments. You have a motive for killing him.”

“Killing him?” It felt like he’d been ejected into the cold of space. “I didn’t—”

“Multiple witnesses say you did.”

“Who?” he demanded. “Admiral—”

“Surrender to the force pursuing you. Lieutenant Commander Brandt is in charge.”

“Hagan was on his knees, sir,” he said between gritted teeth. “He was unarmed. His hands were visible. Someone on Brandt’s team took him out.” And Brandt’s team was still pursuing them. Thirty seconds until Bayis would have a lock on their location.

“Find Hagan’s assistant, Stratham,” he said quickly.

“Surrender to the pursuit force, Commander.”

“Question him,” he went on. “He rewired Hagan. Make him tell you the truth.”

“Damn it, Rykus.” Exasperation shattered Bayis’s professionally neutral expression. “I can’t help you unless you turn yourself in. I can’t help Lieutenant Ashdyn unless she gives us the cipher.”

If the cuff hadn’t been made from a strong metal, it would have crumpled in Rykus’s hand. He felt Ash watching him, waiting for his words or body language to signal his decision: would he surrender or would he help Ash evade capture?

“I understand, sir,” he said. “Rykus out.”

He ended the call.

“That went well.” Ash’s tone was light and amused. It juxtaposed with the ready-to-flee tension in her posture.

“Telepaths,” Kalver said. It wasn’t a question; it wasn’t a statement either.

Rykus shifted his gaze to the anomaly. “Yes.”

Kalver scratched his beard. When he lowered his hand, he gave a small shrug, and Rykus could almost hear him drawl out an
All right
. No doubt. Just acceptance. Rykus said telepathy was real, so it was.

It grated against his conscience. It didn’t help that he was certain Kalver should have been elsewhere, somewhere with his team, aiding the search-and-rescue operations occurring throughout Ephron City. But he’d abandoned his team, his duty, to respond to Rykus’s Mayday.

It was wrong.

This whole goddamn situation was wrong.

“The pursuit force will be crawling up our six soon,” Kalver said.

He still felt Ash’s eyes on him, still sensed how close she was to bolting. He didn’t blame her. Until recently, he hadn’t been worthy of her trust.

He would be worthy of it now.

He turned to Kalver. “Take us to the nearest outpost.”

“Yes, sir.” The anomaly unslung his rifle.

“Kal.” Ash’s voice hadn’t shaken, it hadn’t cracked, but it stopped Kalver mid-turn.

He scanned her head to toe, and understanding moved across his face. He looked at Rykus, eyebrows raised for permission.

Permission to give her a booster. Anomalies always carried two extra injections.

Rykus had to fight his immediate reaction. There were complications if he said yes, complications that hadn’t been there when they’d been on the
Obsidian
. Ash hadn’t been so badly hurt, and Katie would have watched out for her patient, given her medicine to make sure her body accepted the chemicals. Ash would have been okay.

Ash might not be okay now. She was already experiencing withdrawal symptoms. If she injected the booster without access to medical care, it could kill her.

But if she didn’t get the booster, it
would
kill her.

Rykus dipped his chin in a fractional nod.

Kalver pulled a small, black case out of a zippered pocket. “Interested in a boost, sweetheart?”

Ash stumbled forward so quickly the other anomaly barely had time to take the syringe out. He chuckled when he pushed up her tattered sleeve and then plunged the needle into her arm.

Ash’s knees buckled. Kalver snaked an arm around her waist. Her hands gripped his biceps, and she went limp. Not unconscious, but the chemicals always hit anomalies hard. Their coordination left, their strength too, as the concoction burned through their bloodstream. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation the anomalies said. It was a potent one.

Rykus turned away.
He
wanted to be the one holding Ash. He couldn’t get her body out of his mind, the way she’d felt in his arms, the sound she had made when she’d come undone.

“How long has it been?” Kalver demanded.

“Three weeks,” Rykus answered. He glanced back at Ash, saw her back arch.

“Just three?” Kalver lowered Ash to the ground. “She shouldn’t be reacting like this.”

“No, but she’s been through hell.”

“Then she needs medical care. You should have given the admiral our location.”

“She would have run.”

The expression Kalver gave him said
She would have tried
.

“And she still wouldn’t have lasted long enough for the bureaucrats to approve an injection. Plus, you heard my transmission. The forces pursuing us took out Hagan when he told them Ash was innocent. A telepath got to Ash. One got to the war chancellor, and another to the soldiers sent to bring us in. We don’t know how far the enemy’s influence goes. We don’t even know who the enemy is.”

“But you trust the admiral,” Kalver pointed out.

“We’ve worked together for a long time. He’s risked his life for the Coalition, and he’s a friend.” He kept his expression firm as he held Kalver’s gaze, but his mind cycled back to his last hours on the
Obsidian
. Bayis hadn’t kept his promise to give Rykus more time before sending the interrogator into Ash’s cell.

Suspicion clawed at his spine, but he forced the sensation away. They had to trust somebody, and if all the Coalition’s top brass were compromised, they were screwed anyway.

“All right,” Kalver drawled, accepting his words. Rykus could have told him humans had learned how to breathe in space, and the anomaly would have believed him.

Rykus turned his attention back to Ash. Sweat beaded on her brow, dampening her hairline. He wanted to take her out of Kalver’s arms, hold her until she pulled through this, but he forced himself to stay away. He wanted Ash more than he’d ever wanted any other woman in his life. He could admit that now, but he also had to admit he never should have acted on it. He hadn’t intended to. When she’d broken down, he’d seen her spiraling farther and farther away from sanity. The kiss had been instinctive, and he’d intended to end it with just that one touch, that one taste, but Ash had responded, and then
he’d
lost his sanity. He’d forgotten about the loyalty training, forgotten that he had authority over Ash, and he’d forgotten that any relationship between them wasn’t just wrong, it was impossible.

He ran a hand over his face, then focused again on Ash. He watched her chest rapidly rise and fall, and as the evening darkened into the black of night, he wished his life had taken a different course, a course that hadn’t taken him to Caruth, a course that hadn’t made him Ash’s fail-safe.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ASH WAS ALIVE.

Really alive.

The chemicals in her bloodstream ricocheted in her veins. She bounced on her toes, waiting for Kal to reappear. He’d gone ahead to scout their path. He and Rykus had decided she needed a few more minutes to recover. She hadn’t. She was good and ready to move.

“Stay still,” Rykus said behind her.

“Can’t.”

“Thought you wanted to avoid Coalition troops. You keep moving, you’ll draw them all here.”

“Not a problem, Rip.” She could take on the six-man pursuit force. Hell, with the way she was feeling, she could take on twice that number.

“Commander. Sir. Or Rykus.”

She looked over her shoulder.

“That’s what you can call me, Lieutenant.”

Holding his gaze, she said, “You’re in a great mood. Sir.”

The pause between “mood” and “sir” made Rykus’s jaw clench. Normally Ash would have smiled or made another quip to get under his skin, but she didn’t like that he and Kalver had decided she should stay here. The trees and boulders provided good cover, but she felt like a target.

It felt like
Rykus
was a target. That’s the other thing that was bothering her. The soldiers who’d attacked them had claimed he’d killed Hagan. Ash couldn’t tell if Admiral Bayis believed that to be true, but what if he did? Did the pursuit force have permission to kill them on sight? If they were captured, would Rykus end up in a cell?

“If this goes to hell, Rip, I’m taking the blame for Hagan.” She wouldn’t let her fail-safe go down with her. This was her problem, her epic clusterfuck. She’d get Rykus out of this mess.

His face, which had been like granite since Kal had shown up, softened. “You’re not taking the blame for anything.”

“I will. You wouldn’t be involved in this if it weren’t for me.”

“I won’t allow it, Ash.”

“You—”

“No.”

Her teeth snapped together. She almost stepped backward. It took far too much willpower to stand where she was. The booster had saved her life, but she still wasn’t herself. If she had been, Rykus’s
no
wouldn’t have so easily snuffed her protest.

She bounced on her toes again, this time just to piss off her fail-safe.

“You got some excess energy to work off?”

Ash didn’t spin toward Kal’s voice, didn’t jump or tense, but it was hard to hold back a curse. She hadn’t heard him, probably because Rykus was right, she should have been stationary and alert. Injecting boosters in a combat situation was never a good idea.