She stated the obvious as if the
Starfarer’s
internal sensors hadn’t fed his implants and relayed the information to him as well Bei slid his hands down the citizen’s satiny skin. The sensors in his NDA reveled in its amazing texture while reporting her vitals. Her body temperature registered a full degree below normal, but he detected a heartbeat, slow and strong.
Disable
Starflight
’s weapons and let the traitors leave
.
Shang’hai jerked as if his words had slapped her.
Leave
?
That bitch killed twenty of our people and you’re just letting her go
?
Chief Rome growled at the engineer.
There’s only one way for her to go. Once our engines are online, we’ll be on top of the
Starflight
before Faso blinks
.
Shang’hai grinned.
We’ll take her alive
.
Bloodlust roiled through the WA. Every Syn-En wanted to spend time with Burkina Faso.
His black eyes snapping with anger, Doc Cabo glanced up at Bei.
I could keep the traitor alive until we reached Terra Dos. Citizens are always rattling on about the benefits of recreation
.
Bei felt the expectation in the WA. Unlike humans, Syn-En used swift justice. They policed their own and enforced their common will and the punishment always fit the crime. Faso should have paid better attention.
I need a quorum of captains giving approval for the sentence
.
Ayes flooded the WA. The computer recorded no dissent among the fleet’s command staff.
So it shall be
. Without an ounce of remorse, Bei sealed Faso’s fate. Too bad her co-conspirators wouldn’t meet the same end. Civilians required a court presided over by a citizen. Bei stroked the arch of the woman’s left foot and felt the slickness of blood and the rasp of her cuts against his thumb. One hundred percent organic. He could use her to get justice for his kind. He could use her for a lot of things. Citizens tended to be easy to manipulate, except perhaps this one.
He had ordered her killed after all.
Chief Rome cleared his throat.
Admiral
?
Reluctantly, Bei stopped exploring the woman’s soft skin. He had a job to do. She could be dealt with later.
Complete rescue operations of life pods
.
Shang’hai tugged on the left panel at the foot of the human’s stasis chamber.
What about our people
?
Rescue the occupied pods first
. Bei tamped down his rising irritation. He’d ordered the Syn-En to abandon the life pods in case Faso targeted more of his men. They’d be fine for a while, but the radiation limited their time in space.
Once the
Starflight
is clear, have them re-board their pods, using their oxygen for thrust and maneuvering, and wait for retrieval.
Chief Rome set his hand on the citizen’s belly and held her inside the chamber’s interior.
Faso still has control of the com system. She could order a self-terminate on the life pods
.
Shang’hai bent a metal sheet into an arc and wedged it across the opening of the stasis chamber. Banded over the citizen’s abdomen, the wide bar would hold her in place.
Especially if that bitch sees us rescuing our men
.
Annoyance shot through Bei. His men frowned upon him touching the woman, but they had no problem doing so. Even unconscious, she caused trouble. He’d have to deal with the citizen. Problem was, with his men triple bunked, the only space he could keep her out of sight would be his quarters. The notion kicked him in the chest. Bei initiated a diagnostics on his cardiac implant and stared at the scorched emblem on the metal. The image of a hazy white planet with a single red ring lying on a star-studded blue background stirred a dormant memory. Where had he seen the icon before?
Chief Rome removed his hand from the citizen and fingered the cleft in his chin.
She drifted up. The band of metal caught her across the abdomen, holding her firmly within the stasis chamber’s confines, but the jagged edges cut into the blanket wrapped around her and tore at the skin underneath.
Bei clasped his hands behind his back to prevent himself from holding her away from the serrated metal. As a citizen, she could strip him of leadership and cost more Syn-En lives on this fruitless mission. Yet there was something about the texture of her skin. He could almost feel the heat and moisture sighing from her pores and the fine hair tickling his fingertips.
Can you take
Starflight
’s com system offline
?
Shang’hai snorted.
Our people reclaimed the latest pieces of technology to build that shuttle. It won’t be easy to wrestle control away from the bridge, but I’ll try
.
Black eyes filled with concern, Doc Cabo glanced at Bei. His tan fingers settled on the buttons of his MedPak.
I’m ready to revive the citizen
.
Bei nodded. Questions formed and reformed inside his head, each vying to be the first asked.
Seconds after Doc pushed the button to release a chemical cocktail into the citizen’s bloodstream, she gasped for breath. Her eyes flew open. Their color was startling, bluer than the Earth’s oceans from high orbit. She looked at the doctor then Bei and groaned. “You people really need to make up your mind. Do you want me dead or alive?”
People. Bei stiffened. He’d explained they were Syn-En. Had the time in stasis damaged her higher brain functions?
Monitor her. All systems. Scan for internal injuries
.
The human wiggled in her stasis chamber. “Ow!”
Red blood bubbled from the cut on her arm. Instead of running along the metal band like normal magnetized fluid, it floated toward him.
Bei caught the drop, squished it between his fingers. The moisture turned them warm and slick. Activating his CBR sensors, he felt the liquid being sucked into his armor for analysis.
Doc quirked an eyebrow before laying a hand on her sternum and pushing her back, away from the sharp edged band. Her blood still pulsed through the tubes attached to his forearm. “Try not to move. I’ve only filtered four liters.”
The woman twisted and turned until her hands latched onto the sides of her stasis chamber. Using her hold as leverage, she managed to wiggle into a sitting position.
Like all humans, Bei noted, she did not heed the advice of a Syn-En.
Then she noticed the tubes.
“What! Good Lord.” Her fingers played with the tubes, followed them from her neck to Doc’s arm. She leaned over the lip of the pod. “How are you doing that?”
Doc set his free hand gently on her shoulder and held her still. “The enhancements in my left are primarily for triage under CBR conditions.”
The woman’s eyes grew wide in her face. “CBR? What’s that?”
“Chemical, biological, and radiological events.” Smiling, Doc removed the needle from her jugular. Her blood bubbled from the hole and Doc frowned.
Turning her head, the woman tried to look at the wound. “What’s the matter? Didn’t it work? Am I going to die again?”
Using his thumb, Doc applied pressure to the damaged skin. “You are free of cyanide and the injection should have prevented any brain damage during your short death.”
“Short death? That’s a convenient term. Well, you see judge, it was only a short death soo….” The citizen raised her pale hand and slapped it over the doctor’s darker one. “What do you mean should have prevented damage?”
Bei swallowed his amusement. Her thoughts were more erratic than most citizens he’d dealt with.
Maneuvering her finger over the seeping hole, Doc worked the needle out of her artery. Blood spurted from the opening, spraying him across the face.
The woman yelped and slapped her other hand against her throat. The red blood seeped through her fingers and swirled in the air. Her skin seemed paler than a second ago. “Give me something to stop the bleeding.”
Doc patted her hand, tugged an ampoule from the compartment in his right forearm and snapped off the top. The medicinal scent quickly filled the air. “You did not respond as expected.”
Brushing aside the woman’s hands, Doc waited for a small pulse of arterial spray to stop then smeared the ampoule’s contents on the puncture.
The citizen hissed through clenched white teeth but kept her fists against the interior of her stasis chamber. “Are you saying you didn’t mean to kill me?”
Surprise scattered Bei’s thoughts. The human actually trusted the Syn-En doctor to heal her. That fact alone made her dangerous to him and his kind. He’d prefer his enemies to be clear cut. “No. You needed to die.”
The citizen focused her attention on him, and he felt it almost like a physical caress. For a moment, her attention drifted down to his mouth before she shook herself slightly and met his gaze. “Then why bring me back?”
“Your death was not meant to be permanent.” The truth slipped from Bei. Even killing a citizen for a short time was a capital offense.
She nodded and her shoulders relaxed. A tentative smile flirted with her full lips. “Just long enough to satisfy Grace’s bloodlust.”
Bei’s attention snapped back to his mission. Was the woman about to reveal something important? “Grace?”
The citizen shrugged and jerked her head in the direction of the com panel. “The African-American woman on the computer with big white teeth and a sadistic appetite who ordered you to kill me.”
Disappointment filtered through Bei. He had to remember that her apparent respect for the Syn-En was an act, a means to keep his kind in their proper place. Even her excessive chatter was meant to divert his attention from the mutineers. Not that he could do much with his ship dead in the water, crippled with damage and weapons offline. “Her name is Burkina Faso.”
The citizen focused on her thumbnail, tugged on the cuticle until she ripped it off and blood beaded on raw skin. “What happens if she again orders my death?”
Bei replayed the scenarios in his head. Could she be in this with Faso? Not likely, given what he knew of the traitor’s character. “Faso is not in command.”
The human looked up. Hope blazed in her blue eyes. “You killed her?”
Storing the reaction to be analyzed later, Bei shook his head. “No.”
“Why the heck not?”
From her position next to him, Shang’hai snorted but blasted her anger over the WA.
See. Even the human agrees the bitch should not have been allowed to escape
.
Bei felt the rage swirl inside his own body but quickly controlled it.
Save your energy for finding the stasis chamber’s flight recorder. I need to know how soon she was sent after mission launch. Earth might have tried to renege on its promise of freedom for the Syn-En even before we reached Terra Dos
.
Shang’hai crouched at the foot of the stasis chamber, examining the end.
As he expected, the reminder of past injustices against his people tempered his command staff’s infatuation with the citizen. He walked over to stand next to the Chief near the head of the chamber, while the engineer continued working on at the opposite end. Pressure built up on his forearm. He looked down and saw the citizen’s hand.
She squeezed gently. “I’m sorry Burkina killed your people because of me.”
Although Bei’s systems registered only sincerity in her words and features, he couldn’t trust her. Citizen betrayal was too much a part of his past. He’d promised his people freedom and freedom they would have. Heat flared along his cerebral computer interface, a reminder of their differences and his pledge to protect citizens. “We are Syn-En.”
The sentence explained everything, yet the woman didn’t seem to understand.
Chief Rome cleared his throat, picked at a ragged seam on his blue uniform. “
Starflight
has cleared the fleet. The bitch is scanning us, probably looking for a target.”
The human shrank back into her life pod and tucked the hem of the blanket between her thighs. Her heart raced and her pupils dilated. “Can Burkina detect that I’m alive?”
“No.” Bei glanced at his security officer. Was his Chief deliberately trying to scare her? Either way, Faso needed to be neutralized. Bei had no doubt that not firing upon the shuttle would be viewed as a weakness.
Did you confirm that the
Starflight
’s weapons are offline, Chief?
Aye, Admiral
. Chief Rome switched his attention to the human, then her hand on Bei’s arm before cocking an eyebrow.
Bei returned the look. The citizen liked to touch. He wasn’t about to let on that he understood her game, using contact and the ease of it to seduce him into doing her bidding. Faso had taught him well in the ways of human women. Besides, it wasn’t as if he enjoyed the contact.
The citizen’s grip tightened on his arm. “What’s going on and don’t say nothing. I’ve seen that look before. It means there’s a big ‘but’ coming. I didn’t spend twenty years as an administrative assistant to some very powerful men not to recognize a whammy on the horizon.”
Bei started. The woman had picked up on something. Six months aboard the ship and the Syn-En had begun to express their emotions outside of the WA. It wouldn’t have been a problem before, but now they had a one hundred percent organic citizen on board, one who could assume command of the fleet just because she had no tech.
Whammy
?
Citizens have a strange way of talking
. The Chief blinked then frowned as external sensors fed new information to the WA. “
Starflight
’s weapons are charging.”
Shit. Bei had hoped Faso would be so afraid of Syn-En retaliation she’d burn out the engines in a quick retreat. Instead, she’d decided to neutralize as many Syn-En as she could before they hunted her down. Blanking the anger from his features, Bei shunted a flash of annoyance at his security officer. “Why aren’t weapons offline?”
Chief Rome clenched his jaw. His irritation flared across the WA. “One of Faso’s lovers is a very talented hacker. Tim’s happy fingers demoted him from citizen to civilian and earned him ten years in the service of the Syn-En.”