Shades of Treason (31 page)

Rykus reached a cross section, stopped, then carefully peered both ways down the aisle. Nothing. A quick glance over his shoulder didn’t reveal any signs of life either. Kalver had disappeared, but he was back there somewhere, covering his six.

With a quick burst of speed, Rykus darted across the aisle. He slowed when he reached the other side, then continued on with cautious steps.

So many shadows here. So many places for an enemy to hide. If he’d been setting up a defense instead of moving in on the offense, he would have ordered his men to lie down in those black voids and wait for the enemy to approach.

He could almost feel crosshairs on his head.

He wiped his sleeve across his sweaty brow.

No fear. No failure.
It had never been his motto, but he made it one now. Hesitation would get him killed. It would get Ash and Katie killed.

He stayed in his low crouch and increased his pace.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE MAN’S ELBOW slammed into Ash’s side, cracking a rib that hadn’t had time to heal. She gritted her teeth and kept her arm locked around his neck, doing her best to keep his thrashing legs from squeaking across the deck.

His face turned from red to blue. Then he went still.

Ash lowered him to the floor, broke his neck to make sure he wouldn’t rise again, then confiscated his pistol.

She crawled into the shadows between two crates and listened. Jevan and the two men who’d survived the brief fight in the lobby had followed her. They were somewhere in the bay. So was Katie. As much as Ash would love to hunt down Jevan, she needed to secure the doctor first.

Closing her eyes, she strained to hear something. Instead, she felt something. A shadow. It was somewhere to her left and edging closer. She wished she could stay in the darkness, wait for whoever it was to move into her sight, but if she felt him, then he undoubtedly felt her too. She needed to keep moving.

Tightening the makeshift dressing she’d placed over her collarbone, she retreated from the darkness to climb up the shelving unit. She’d made it halfway to the top, the fourth shelf, when Jevan’s voice reached her.

“Ramie,” he called out. “I’m getting tired of this game. Come out of the shadows and talk.”

He was closer than she thought. She moved to get a better view of the aisle below.

“I’ll be the gentleman and apologize first,” Jevan said.

She still couldn’t see him, but she was almost certain he was the shadow she felt.

“I’m deeply sorry for your wounded feelings. If it makes you feel better, it wasn’t easy getting into your head. It took time. It took finesse. It took quite a bit of fucking.”

Jevan had always loved to hear himself talk. He was an idiot to do so now. She couldn’t pinpoint his location using only the pressure in her mind, but she’d be able to pinpoint it using his voice. If he wanted to be an idiot, she was more than happy to let him.

“That’s the only way I was able to get inside your mind,” he continued. “You were open to me when you came. Your defenses were down, and I crept inside you, thought by thought.”

She slipped into the shadows between two crates, inching closer to his location.

“We had some good times.” His voice sounded more distant, like he’d turned away from her. “I was using you, but it wasn’t a burden. We could still work well together.”

She stopped before she peeked into the lighted aisle.

“I’m being patient, Ramie, but my tolerance for your games won’t last long.”

Instinct told her to remain still and silent, and in a few seconds that paid off. She heard a footstep, and when she leaned the slightest bit forward, she glimpsed the top of Jevan’s head. He still wasn’t looking her direction.

Raising her pistol, she took aim at his left temple, the lowest part of his head she could see. Her hand ached to squeeze the trigger. She wouldn’t miss. She’d take him down, spill his brain across the floor like he’d spilled her teammates’.

But the Grath was a loud weapon. Any shot she took would alert Jevan’s colleagues. She couldn’t risk them getting trigger-happy and shooting the doctor.

She closed her eyes, drew in one long, slow breath. Soon. She’d kill him soon. She just needed to find—

A scuffle of feet came from below. A man moved between her and Jevan. Ash kept her finger on the trigger, waiting, watching, listening. She risked leaning forward into the light so she could get a better view of the aisle.

The man shoved Katie to the ground in front of Jevan.

“You want proof of life,” Jevan called out, pointing a pistol at Katie’s head. “Come find me.”

The man who’d brought the doctor also drew and aimed his gun. So did a third man who stepped into view.

Ash swallowed down a curse. She couldn’t take down all three of them before they had a chance to squeeze off a round.

She sat back on her haunches. At least she wasn’t hunkered down with Rykus and Kalver. Stratham’s claim that Ash was special, that it took work to pry into her mind, implied that Jevan couldn’t locate everyone like he could locate her. He didn’t know when Rykus and Kal would show up or where they’d come from. Hell, he didn’t know they were a
they
. Ash still had a chance to get Katie out of this. Rykus and Kalver just needed to get their asses there.

Stall. That was one hell of a plan.

“Say hello, Doctor,” Jevan crooned.

A few seconds passed. There was a thud, a quiet gasp, then Jevan ordered, “Say. Hello.”

“Go to hell,” Katie snarled.

The woman had backbone. Nice.

“Come out, Ramie,” Jevan said.

Ash pulled her lower lip between her teeth—

“No!”

Gunfire cut off Katie’s scream, and Ash bit through her lip.

She fell back as if she’d taken the bullet in the gut. It felt like the capsule had collapsed around her. Fear tightened her body, and the muscles in her neck and shoulders cramped. The edges of her vision turned black from lack of oxygen. She was panicking. She never panicked.

Tightening her grip on her gun, she ordered herself to relax. It didn’t work. She was still shaking, still hearing the echoes of bullets. That sound had reverberated in her ears even after Jevan had shot her teammates. It had banged around inside her head as Trevast whispered his last words. But back on that shuttle, her heart had eventually slowed down. It was speeding up now, battering her chest like solar wind on a damaged hull. She’d been through more firefights, more stressful situations than this. She shouldn’t be reacting this way, but Jevan had shot her fail-safe’s fiancée. Ash had failed. Again.

“Last chance, Ramie,” Jevan called out.

A tendril of air slipped into her lungs. Her ears picked up a sound, a quiet, pain-filled moan.

Katie was alive.

“Time’s up,” Jevan said. “This is your fault—”

“I’m here.” She stuck the Grath into her waistband, then scurried from the shadows.

Jevan and his two men looked up, but their pistols didn’t move away from Katie’s head.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lieutenant?” the doctor demanded.

Ash’s gaze shifted from Jevan to Katie. She was sitting with one bloodied leg stretched out in front of her. Her lip was busted, and a bruise purpled the skin under her left eye. Craning her neck, she glared up at Ash.

The sight almost made Ash smile. The blackness that edged her vision faded, her heartbeat slowed to a steady, deliberate thud, and she could see the situation clearly again.

“I’m attempting to save your life,” she said.

“You think he’s going to let me go?”

Ash ignored the question and focused on Jevan again. “Let her walk away.”

He looked down at Katie’s leg. “That might be difficult at the moment.”

“She’ll manage.”

“Climb down,” he said, filling his voice with an exaggerated exhaustion.

Ash swallowed down a retort that was likely to get both her and Katie killed, then she carefully—and more importantly, slowly—descended the shelves. She listened for Rykus or Kalver. Ash didn’t know their plan, but they should be there by now. There’s no way they’d waited in the medical unit for Jevan’s call. They were targets there. They’d likely left soon after she had, so what was taking them so damn long?

She reached the floor, counted to three, then turned and faced Jevan.

“Hello again, Ramie.” Jevan’s smile made her more nauseous than the time-bend had. He’d smiled like that on the shuttle from Chalos II.

“Can I help her?” She nodded toward Katie, who’d unfastened her belt to tighten it around her leg, just above the hole in her thigh. Jevan’s men didn’t stop her; they kept their guns aimed and ready.

“You can help by placing your gun on the ground,” Jevan said.

“How will you explain her death if she bleeds out?”

“Gun on the ground, Ramie. It’ll be harder for her to treat a hole in the head.”

Ash took the Grath out of her waistband, leaned over, and placed it on the ground.

“Kick it this way.”

She did that too.

“That’s a good girl. Now let me in your head.”

That she wouldn’t do. Ever. She kept her mouth shut and looked away so she wouldn’t trigger a blackout. The warning was there, pressing against the back of her skull. She needed to end this. To do that, Katie needed to be taken out of the equation.

“You said we could work well together.”

Jevan’s eyebrows went up. Whether the interest was feigned or real, she didn’t know.

“If you’d cooperated with me from the beginning,” he said, “we wouldn’t be here. Your teammates would be alive and I’d have a decrypted set of the Sariceans’ files.”

“You didn’t have my fail-safe’s fiancée then. You have her now.”

“
Ex
-fiancée,” Katie said between gritted teeth. The skin around her mouth was pale, but the rest of her face was flushed red. She was pissed that Ash was supposedly considering switching alliances. At least, she was acting like she was pissed about the possibility.

Ash shrugged. “Rykus still cares about you. So I care about you.” She focused on Jevan again. “I don’t have a choice. I have to do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

Jevan’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t think he’d buy it. Sure, she felt the influence of the loyalty training, but she could fight it if she tried.

“We would make a good team,” Jevan said, his tone turning contemplative. “Tell you what. You give me the cipher and let me inside your head for thirty seconds, and I’ll consider it.”

He lowered his gun. His two men didn’t—they kept their weapons pointed at Katie’s head—but they took their fingers off the triggers.

“What do you want from the Sariceans’ files?” Ash asked.

The corners of his mouth lifted into a subtle, sly smile. “Schematics for a tachyon drive.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it when her mind registered his words. Hagan had said there was speculation the Sariceans had built a new technology. He’d assumed it was a weapon or upgraded defense device. If Jevan was telling the truth, it was both.

“They’ve developed it,” he said, misinterpreting her silence as disbelief. “How do you think the Sariceans launched a surprise attack at Ephron?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was in the brig at the time.” Troops and ships had to be transported via capsules. If the Sariceans had found a way to give individual vessels interstellar travel capabilities, it would revolutionize the way wars were fought.

“That’s how they got close,” Jevan said. “Their tachyon-driven ships emerged from the time-bend right on top of Ephron. Your command is scrambling to find out how they accomplished that. They’re contemplating the existence of a tachyon drive.”

“There are other ways to launch a surprise attack,” she said because she needed to keep him talking. “The Sariceans could have sent in scouts, powered down and coasted, cloaked transmissions.”

“They didn’t.”

She inched forward.

“Okay. Let’s assume a tachyon drive does exist,” she said, shifting slightly to the right. “What would you do with it?”

“My faction would control it.”

Ash ceased her slow advance.

Faction. Stratham had uttered that word right before she broke his neck. And faction… It sounded so very much like
fashion
.

Will destroy Coalition
, Trevast had said right before he’d whispered,
The fashion. Fight
.

The factions. Trevast hadn’t uttered nonsense. He’d given her a clue, a clue that now sounded like a dire, desperate warning.

“You weren’t supposed to change the encryption on the files,” Jevan said as if she weren’t reliving the hell of losing her team. What had Trevast seen? What had he known? Hagan had assumed he saw a list of names, but would a list of names have been enough to convince Trevast that telepaths existed? Ash had only believed his words after the confrontation with Jevan. Why would Trevast believe so easily?

Everything had happened so fast. It had become muddled in her head, and the only things she had focused on were escaping, protecting the Coalition, and killing Jevan. She had never questioned her team lead’s belief in telepathy.

“I had a copy,” Jevan continued. “Your copy would have been lost when we destroyed your shuttle. That little stunt you pulled saved your life, but just barely. I was this”—he held up his thumb and forefinger—”close to ending your existence, but the last tweak I made to your mind silenced you. That tweak allowed me to let you live. You owe me your life, Ramie.”

“You sent Stratham to kill me,” she said. Her voice sounded weak to her ears. She was still reeling, still trying to see if she’d missed something else.

Jevan shrugged. “You became too much of a liability. You were supposed to decrypt the files. I had people in place to copy and corrupt them. You would have been transferred to a prison and quickly executed.”

She needed to focus, to keep him talking and swing the conversation back around to where she wanted it, but could she risk a blackout? It would incapacitate her and let Jevan back into her head.

Her heart slammed against her chest. A warning crawled across the nape of her neck. She couldn’t say the word
faction
, she was sure of it.