Shades of Treason (24 page)

“I didn’t do it. A crypty did it,” Bayis said. “A crypty who happens to also be an anomaly. Twenty seconds.”

Sweat trickled down his back. “Ash, put down the gun.”

Her gaze flickered to his.

Kalver said something to her. Rykus couldn’t hear the words, but whatever they were, they made Ash flinch. A moment later, she set down the gun.

Soldiers surged forward. Rykus lost sight of her in the swarm. Men confiscated his weapon, shackled his hands, then pushed and shoved him into the relief cruiser.

He jerked his shoulder out of one soldier’s grasp, then rammed into another. “Ash?”

“Settle down.” Bayis’s voice rang out. “All of you.”

The tight panic in Rykus’s chest didn’t lessen until he saw Ash. She knelt in the middle of the small bridge, hands cuffed behind her back, gaze locked on the deck in front of her. He wanted her to look up, to meet his eyes and give him some sign that she was okay, but her jaw was clenched and he could see fury radiating from her with each breath she drew in.

Every soldier on the cruiser had their weapons pointed at them. Rykus needed to keep calm and steady. He couldn’t let this situation get out of control.

The bridge was lit. He scanned the faces behind the guns and recognized most of them. They were from the
Obsidian
, men and women under his command.

Or they had been under his command. Rykus identified the man now in charge, Brookins, Rykus’s executive officer and the anomaly Ash had shot during her escape.

Hell, maybe Rykus was wrong about anomalies being mortal. That bullet had dropped Brookins less than a day ago and he was already out of med bay and back on the job. If the situation had been different, Rykus would have clasped his XO on the shoulder and told him how damn relieved he was to see him alive.

But the situation wasn’t different, and Brookins was pissed. The anomaly rarely showed emotion, but the set of his jaw, the glare in his eyes, the way his attention was completely locked on Ash—it all betrayed how much he wanted payback.

“We could use more breathing room in here, Brookins,” Rykus said.

The anomaly didn’t take his eyes off Ash, and the gun he held remained aimed at her head. He didn’t have to listen to Rykus’s suggestion.

“Dismiss your men,” Bayis said. He must have seen how precarious this situation was too.

“Henel, Markins, stay,” Brookins ordered after only a slight hesitation. “Everyone else, out.”

The soldiers moved, following the command. As they filtered off the cruiser, Kalver met his gaze. Rykus shook his head. No, he didn’t want the anomaly to make a move. He wanted to decrease the tension on the bridge, not ratchet it up.

He turned back to Bayis. “Kalver was following my orders. No charges should be brought against him.”

“His actions will be reviewed.” The admiral stepped toward Ash. “I have authorization to terminate you, Lieutenant.”

Ice replaced the blood in Rykus’s veins. Bayis could kill her, right here in front of him.

“If Commander Rykus wasn’t a soldier with an impeccable record,” Bayis continued. “If he wasn’t a damn good officer. If he wasn’t
the
Rest in Peace Rykus, I’d use that authority and have you killed immediately. But he is a good soldier, and he’s my friend. You have one chance to prove that you’ll work with us. Decrypt the files.”

Still kneeling on the floor, Ash lifted her chin and met Bayis’s eyes. “No.”

Bayis looked at Rykus. His grim expression said he had one last chance to get control of his anomaly.

Control. Shit. Rykus could do that. He could command Ash to enter the cipher. If he got his tone and cadence right.

“Ash—”

Ash glared at him. Fury radiated from her green eyes, and her expression held a vehemence he’d never before seen on her face.

His heart staggered backward, but there was no way out of this. If they fought, they’d die.

He moved toward Ash.

“Rykus,” Brookins said, his voice filled with warning.

“Wait,” Bayis said.

Rykus knelt in front of Ash, putting himself between her and Brookins. She stiffened and leaned away from him, still angry, still distrusting.

He needed armor to protect him from that venom. “Lieutenant—”

“Lieutenant.” She let out a scalding laugh. “That’s not what you were calling me a few hours ago.”

In his peripheral vision, he saw Bayis straighten. The admiral was perceptive. He likely knew what Ash alluded to. Rykus didn’t care. Ash was trying to hurt him, push him away, set him off so she could wiggle out of the command she thought was coming. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t violate her free will. All he could do was try to get her to see reason.

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing,” Rykus said, “but… Ash, it’s the loyalty training. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. Only someone who has been indoctrinated would keep the files to themselves through all this, especially when those files can clear your name. You think you’re fighting for the Coalition. I understand that—I admire it—but even if the telepaths’ reach goes farther than Hagan, it won’t permanently damage the Coalition. The Coalition will come out stronger and… Damn it.”

Bayis stepped forward. “What is it?”

Rykus’s hands were still shackled behind his back. He couldn’t reach out and touch Ash, but he was certain she wasn’t seeing him anymore.

“A blackout.” He leaned to the right. Ash’s gaze didn’t follow. “This is why she wouldn’t answer our questions. She can’t.”

“This isn’t proof—”

“She’s not a traitor.”

Bayis held up a hand to calm him. “I’m just saying it’s not proof. I wouldn’t have personally come dirtside if I didn’t think there might be some truth to your claim. How long will this last?”

“Around a minute.” He watched her, wanting so damn badly to take her into his arms.

A few seconds passed. Ash blinked rapidly, then her eyes found him.

“You okay?” he asked. Stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay. She was back in shackles, hurt, exhausted, and telepathically handicapped.

“I must have access to the files,” Bayis said, his tone thawing. “My hands are tied otherwise.”

Rykus understood. Bayis had superiors to report to, and I-Com was probably breathing down his neck already. He couldn’t blame the admiral for doing what he had to do.

“Ash,” Rykus said, trying one last time to get through to her. “Even if you’re right about the damage the files might do, it’s not your choice to make. You’re a soldier. You took an oath to follow the orders of your superior officers and… And you can’t preserve and protect the Coalition if you’re dead.”

The thought of her dying, of being executed there on the spot, made his throat turn raw. He swallowed, then he said a silent prayer asking for Ash to listen.

Something in her expression changed. Her shoulders hunched, either in defeat or acceptance. Rykus hoped it was the latter. He hadn’t commanded her—he’d done everything he could to let this be her choice—but the loyalty training was always present, urging Ash to do what her fail-safe wanted. On Caruth, Ash had fought against that pressure. The more Rykus had pushed, the more she’d pushed back. It was her way of maintaining control, of showing herself and the rest of the universe that the loyalty training didn’t own her. Rykus had to believe she was strong enough not to let it own her now.

She looked away from him. Her nod was slow, shaky. Her gaze followed Bayis as he walked to the cruiser’s command console. He inserted a device slightly smaller than a flattened comm-cuff into a port, then punched in a series of commands, turning the system into a secure communications gateway. The only way to access anything input into the station was by using the device’s twin, a similar relayer which was likely under the control of Bayis’s second-in-command. He’d be on the
Obsidian
waiting with the Sariceans’ files.

Bayis motioned her to the chair in front of the console. Rykus rose when she did and stayed close when she walked to the console and lowered herself into the seat.

“I need my hands,” she said, her voice monotone.

Brookins holstered his firearm, unlocked her restraints, then relocked them in front of her, allowing her to reach the keypad. Her jaw flexed once, then she brought up a generic scripting program. She typed in a long string of code as if she was recounting a nursery rhyme, not entering in a virtually unbreakable cipher she’d undoubtedly created back on Caruth. That algorithm was the reason none of the Coalition’s security experts would have ever been able to hack into the files. No one could guess the timing of her equations.

Finishing the code, she then ran the Sariceans’ files through the cipher using her encryption key.

Rykus straightened, let out a breath, then watched the files unwrap.

And unwrap.

And unwrap.

With the encryption and the compression of the data, the Coalition had no way of knowing how much information Ash’s team had taken from Chalos II. He’d read the op specs. The plan had been risky and had relied on her entire team remaining undetected. Ash hadn’t said a word about the op—she
couldn’t
say a word about it—and as far as they knew, they’d executed it well. This amount of information though… This amount of information indicated the op had gone perfectly.

Standing on Ash’s other side, Bayis let out a quiet curse. “You had a two-minute window. How did you steal all this?”

Ash didn’t respond. She slumped back in her seat and stared at the screen.

The file names were written in the Sariceans’ language. Rykus couldn’t read it, but Ash could. Anomalies learned languages the Coalition deemed strategically important. If Trevast had verified the stolen data and come across the evidence that telepaths existed, he had been able to read it as well, and somewhere in all that data lay the information that would prove Ash’s innocence.

The tension in his chest unwound. He knelt at Ash’s side, putting him eye level with her. “Thank you,” he whispered.

A mix of hesitant trust and trepidation etched her expression. It vanished when Brookins moved behind her.

Ash swung out of her chair with a soul-shredding battle cry. Her shackled hands went for Brookins’s throat.

“Ash!” Rykus charged forward the same instant Kalver did. They reached Ash at the same time. Rykus knocked her away from Brookins while Kalver took the other man on.

Ash landed on her back. She tried to surge upright, but Rykus kept her down. Bayis and the two soldiers had their weapons trained on her.

“What are you doing?” Rykus demanded.

Ash’s wide, rage-filled eyes locked on him. She started to say something; then her eyes rolled back and she went slack beneath him.

“Ash.” He shook her gently. He had no fucking idea what had just happened. Had she snapped? Had decrypting the files broken something in her?

“Ash.” This time fear leaked into his voice. They were close to getting out of this hell. Ash couldn’t—

“Sir.”

He’d lose it if he stared at Ash’s unmoving body another second, so he made himself turn toward Kalver, who stood in front of Brookins. Both anomalies were facing each other, ready to attack and kill. Kalver was handicapped by his restraints, Brookins by the still-healing bullet hole in his chest, and Rykus by a fear that threatened to send him over the edge.

“It’s just a sedative,” Bayis said. “I have orders to keep her sedated.”

Rykus blinked. Then he stared down at the floor. Beside Brookins was a small metal injector.

He looked back at Ash, saw the pinprick of blood on her neck.

Heart pumping, he rose to his feet and turned his fury on the admiral, grinding out, “She’s innocent.”

“I can’t risk another escape.”

“I’ll take responsibility for her.”

Bayis sighed. “Frankly, Commander, that’s an additional cause of concern for I-Com. They want you on Meryk for a full debriefing.”

“I’ll tell them what they want to know, but she doesn’t need to be sedated.”

“She
will
be.”

“Until when?” Rykus demanded, his control slipping. “Her trial six or seven months from now?”

“Until we have evidence of what’s been done to her.” Bayis stepped closer. “I’m trying to save your career, Rykus. There are questions—”

“I don’t give a damn about my career.”

“I do. I-Com does. Like it or not, you’re important to the Coalition’s image. If Rest in Peace Rykus violates the command and authority of the Fighting Corps, if he betrays the trust the senate placed in him, it will damage the integrity of the Coalition. You’re an icon.”

Rykus shook his head.

“Sir.” This time Kalver’s
sir
was a request for permission. His muscles were tight, and his breathing was war-ready rapid. He wanted to fight, to free Ash, to kick Brookins’s ass. By the time the anomalies graduated, they were family. They’d survived hell together, and they’d do anything for each other, even break the law to get their brothers—or sister—out of the shit.

Rykus closed his eyes. He had to turn off his emotions, maintain control of this situation. He had to put himself in a position where he could help Ash later.

“Stand down, Kalver.” He sounded like a fucking robot, but the anomaly relaxed out of his poised-to-attack stance. So did Brookins.

“Take her to the back,” Bayis said. “Tell the crew to come in. We’re returning to the
Obsidian
.”

Brookins walked past Kalver, picked up Ash, then hoisted her limp body over his shoulder. Rykus wanted to slam his fist into the now-black computer screen. He wanted to feel the glass break, see the sparks fly. Instead, he let Brookins take Ash away without protest. He’d find someone to help her, to get her out of that cell and off the sedative as soon as he could.

When the crew came back in, Bayis retrieved the relayer from the command console’s data-port. Rykus watched him pocket it. How long would it take to translate the files and find what Ash’s team lead had seen?

A thought occurred to him, another route to the information they needed.

“Stratham,” he said. “Hagan’s assistant. Where is he?”

Bayis didn’t answer immediately. He watched the three-man crew take their seats. His expression remained unreadable until he let out a sigh. “Stratham has disappeared.”