Enemy Games Read online

  “Their exhaust,” she corrected, glancing at the view screen. The mercenary ship loomed before them, a big, hulking craft, steadily gaining on the Sen Ekir. “Isn’t that right? Ykktyryk ships don’t shield exhaust ports.”

  “They prefer speed to protection,” Damen said.

  He was nodding when she glanced over her shoulder at him. His expression, when he looked back, said she was defying known parameters.

  Good.

  “Something your father told you?”

  “Ari.”

  His face lit with a surprised smile before an explosion rattled their ship. Metal creaked and the plates beneath her feet jumped.

  “Countermeasures took out two missiles,” V’kyrri said. “One left. We’re positioned to take it in the teeth.”

  “Shields,” Damen ordered, pushing the ship into another dive through Chemmoxin’s pale sky.

  “Got ’em,” V’k replied. “We’re good.”

  She watched Damen. He worked his console like a master musician playing a polytonal Taggite organ, minus a Taggite’s two extra arms. Concentration put creases in his forehead and at the corner of the one eye she could see. A tick in the fine muscles of his jaw provided evidence of worry.

  Jayleia threw another barrage of laser fire at the mercenary, hardly waiting for the targeting indicators to flash red.

  The missile impacted their shields and detonated, not on the nose, as V’kyrri had predicted, but amidships, right behind the door where she’d boarded. The impact flung them off course. Lights flashed on the cockpit consoles, bleating and chirping messages she couldn’t hope to understand.

  “Hull integrity intact. Shields holding. Oh, nice shot!” V’kyrri hollered, punching controls that seemed to help Damen wrestle them into position for another try at the big cruiser.

  She looked at the view screen. Their ship spun and swung, flashing the merc ship in and out of the field of view. Blue smoke streamed behind the vessel.

  The mercenary fired on the Sen Ekir. The science ship rocked, but their shields deflected the weapon’s energy.

  Giving the mercenary no time for another shot, Jayleia fired the lasers again, followed immediately by an array of missiles.

  “That’s right,” Damen muttered when the big vessel canted their way. “Leave the unarmed craft alone.”

  “Broadcast another message,” V’kyrri suggested. “Make it plain she’s aboard. The Ykktyryk came in after the first message to the Sen Ekir.”

  “We’ve proven that we’ll rise to the Sen Ekir’s defense,” Jay said. “They’ll use it as a lure.”

  Both men swore.

  Laser fire sliced through their shields. They shuddered, momentum stalling, and rolled. Alarms tried to wail, then sputtered and died. The lights failed. The atmospheric engine choked and the nose pitched toward the steaming jungles below.

  “Spawn of a Myallki bitch,” Damen swore. “Where’d they get the power for that shot?”

  “Restart!” V’kyrri demanded, unbuckling his restraints.

  Damen punched in a rapid-fire command. Nothing happened. “No go!”

  V’k threw himself out of his chair and down the companionway. She heard the bang of engine access panels opening as he went.

  “Found it! Ten seconds!”

  “Why aren’t they finishing us?” she muttered, turning back to the view screen. “They’ve got us dead to rights.”

  “You nailed them,” Damen answered, approval in his voice. He flashed her a brief grin when she glanced at him. He fought his controls, muscles standing out in his arms and shoulders as he struggled to keep the ship airborne. Sweat beaded his temple and trickled down one side of his face. “I got you a shot at their tailpipes and you shoved those missiles straight up their . . .”

  “Online!” V’kyrri shouted.

  “Get up here!” Damen yelled, punching in the sequence for what she assumed would be a hot start on his atmospheric.

  The engine roared to life, pitching the ship in an arc into the atmosphere. Jay heard V’kyrri cursing as he crashed to the deck plating.

  “You should have kidnapped Raj if you’d planned on breaking bones,” she called down the companionway.

  Damen chuckled.

  Jayleia’s heart warmed at the sound.

  “I specifically requested a comedienne,” V’k retorted as he limped into the cockpit and took his seat. “Is the Sen Ekir safe?”

  “They’re clear. Transitioning to star drive,” Damen said, studying his panels. “And they’re away.”

  Part of her relaxed in response to the relief in Damen’s tone. She hadn’t gotten the people she cared about killed. When it came to the Sen Ekir, at least, it appeared she and her kidnappers were aligned.

  She eyed the two men as they worked. They weren’t allies, but neither were they enemies, per se. How far could she trust them?

  “Why didn’t the Erillian make a move while we were disabled?” Damen muttered.

  She looked at the screen. Damen had them pointed right at the sleek ship, engine wide open. The blue sky boundary beckoned a few kilometers past the Erillian.

  Uneasiness wormed through her chest.

  “Does anyone else think playing midair collision games with a known mercenary is a bad idea?” she asked.

  “They won’t fire on us,” Damen said. “Not when they know you’re aboard.”

  “They have tow capability.”

  “They’d have to disable our engine,” he protested.

  “Which has already happened once.”

  “And they didn’t lock us down when it did,” he countered. “They can’t risk killing you.”

  “No! They can’t risk catching me. I am not their objective any more than I’m yours. They want my father. They will fire! It’ll be to cripple, so that we’ll have to declare an emergency and make a run!”

  “How could they know we wouldn’t run you and them straight to the Dagger?” V’kyrri demanded.

  “They don’t,” she replied. “They only have to watch for what happens after you do. Everyone knows that when Admiral Seaghdh interrogates someone, he gets the answers he wants. They’re counting on you to do the hard work of finding my father so they can steal him from you once you do.”

  Damen bit out a curse, his tone grim. “Then they don’t get to follow us. Shut down the shields.”

  He was disabling the defenses? Jayleia boggled. “What?”

  “Done,” V’kyrri answered.

  She glanced between the ruthless expressions on their faces and shuddered. “Look. I’d rather you didn’t hand me over to them. The captain of that Erillian Aggressor is messed up. You guys may be kidnapping me, but at least you’re sane.”

  Damen flashed her a feral grin, his gray eyes glittering. “Do you have enough data to support that analysis?”

  Her breath stopped in her chest and heat suffused her from head to toe.

  He turned away. “They’re hailing.”

  “I’ve got your answer,” V’kyrri replied. “Go.”

  Her console pinged. She glanced sideways at it and guessed at the significance of the flashing indicators. “They’ve established a target lock!”

  The subtlest vibration beneath her feet warned her that another engine had fired. It shrieked to life. She clapped her hands over her ears. It didn’t help. Damen’s spy ship leaped for the stars. They screamed over the top of the Erillian Aggressor, so close that every muscle in her body clenched in anticipation of collision. As if it would have made any difference.

  “Shields!” Damen yelled.

  V’kyrri slammed a control.

  Staggering g-forces crushed her to her seat as the ship lurched. She may have blacked out. Pain seared her chest. Her muscles couldn’t overcome the stress of gravity weighing on them. She couldn’t breathe.

  Then she could. Air slid noisily into her burning lungs. It took a moment to realize Damen and V’kyrri had fared little better. She heard them gasping. Slowly, she realized her eyes weren’t malfunction
ing. They’d left Chemmoxin’s atmosphere. Black space, relieved only by distant stars, filled the view screen.

  “What the Three Hells was that?” she demanded between gulps of air.

  “Data to contradict your sanity assertion,” Damen replied.

  It irked her that he’d recovered much faster than she.

  “You bounced us off their shields?” Jayleia demanded, trembling from a belated flood of epinephrine.

  “I blew their defense generator when I did,” Damen said.

  “Twelve Gods,” she muttered. “Isn’t that move illegal because it’s easier to get yourself blown up than to disable an enemy ship?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I thought you needed me alive. My mistake.”

  “I’d begin an interrogation, but I can see it wasn’t that effective a scare tactic.” Damen tossed a sly grin over his shoulder at her.

  Her heart clenched at the caress of his approving gaze. “Never do it again.”

  He chuckled.

  The contagious sound flushed liquid warmth through her body and she found herself smiling in response. She straightened, wiping the uninvited expression from her face. New aches and assorted bruises rushed to be counted.

  They were alive. The Sen Ekir was out of harm’s way. She sighed and rubbed her face with her hands.

  “All right,” she said. “Before I can betray my father and my people, I need information.”

  CHAPTER 6

  DAMEN traded a troubled glance with V’kyrri. His gut froze at the no-nonsense tone of Jayleia’s voice. He couldn’t read the smooth, emotionless mask she’d made of her face.

  He studied her and knew that, in his own way, V’kyrri did, too.

  “It’s not . . .” he began.

  “Like that?” she finished for him. “Of course it is. Your commanders didn’t order you to kidnap me because they happened to foresee my messy death by kuorl attack.”

  “No,” he replied. “Knowing what kind of death you’d suffer at the hands of the mercenaries brought us to yank you out of harm’s way. If it counts for anything, Captain Idylle’s first concern was for you.”

  Mine, too, he didn’t say aloud.

  She flushed and shifted, but didn’t look away. “I’m a means to an end.”

  “I was ordered to find your father,” he said, “and to ascertain the merit of the charges against him. I was not ordered to seduce you into treason.”

  Her lips twitched. “You could.”

  Had she meant for him to hear that? Want raked through his gut. Damen held his breath. What the Three Hells was happening to him?

  He’d been physically attracted to Jayleia from the moment he’d helped Admiral Seaghdh hijack the Sen Ekir. Somewhere in the past year, simple attraction had grown damnably uncomfortable.

  He felt V’kyrri’s questioning glance. Daring to draw breath again, he forced his mind back to their tactical situation and said, “It looks like we blew more than the Erillian’s defense generators when we hit them with our shields.”

  “They’re limping,” V’kyrri agreed. “The Ykktyryk set down on the glacial fields in the southern hemisphere. No settlements within a thousand kilometers.”

  Jayleia shook her head. “Their funeral. What that ice takes, it does not give up. There’s a reason the settlements on Chemmoxin are clustered in those miserable swamps.”

  V’kyrri tossed her a shrewd glance. “The least of the miseries?”

  “Very much so.”

  “All right,” Damen said, releasing his restraints. “We’re clear and in the lane for Silver City. Let’s get you patched up.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Silver City? How do we know the mercs won’t follow us in?”

  “Let them,” V’kyrri growled, relish in his voice. “They’ll find the Claugh battle cruiser Queen’s Rhapsody waiting.”

  She looked between them, sudden awareness, and a tiny, unguarded smile blooming on her face. Her gaze settled on the telepath. “I see. And I am addressing?”

  “Her new captain,” Damen supplied.

  Jayleia grinned. Her brown eyes lit. “You’re leaving the engines for a command chair? Do you even know where to find it? Congratulations, Captain.”

  Damen felt the answering smile on his face and spotted the grin on V’k. She had them in the palm of her hand. Did she know?

  Damen cleared his throat.

  Jayleia’s smile subsided. He thought he could spot the moment she’d brought her defenses back online, but her gaze still sparkled when she turned it on him. He felt her regard as a physical thing, an approving stroke that stirred his blood and sped his heart rate.

  He spent a second shoring up his own shields.

  “If you load my handheld with a translation routine to interface with your systems,” she said, touching the unit attached to her belt, “I’ll begin pulling information regarding my father.”

  Damen studied her.

  She’d spoken as if the data pull would be easy for a xenobiologist with no computer tech training.

  “Something you learned from Omorle Lin before he died?” Damen asked.

  Both from the way V’kyrri stiffened and from the way her expression closed, he knew he’d hit a nerve.

  “No, Major,” she said. “Science isn’t all fieldwork and experiments. I am occasionally expected to do a bit of research.”

  “Lin was your bodyguard, Jayleia,” Damen countered. “For a decade, he guarded you day and night.”

  Pain spiked in the lines around her mouth.

  “Yes, he did. We were aboard the Balykkal for the first mission to Ioccal,” she said, her tone flat.

  He nodded. Six years ago, the Armada battle prowler, Balykkal, had escorted the Sen Ekir to a world on the edge of TFC space. The world had been colonized early in TFC’s expansionist history and then forgotten. When someone on Tagreth had finally uncovered records regarding the colony, the government had mounted an expedition to Ioccal, a habitable moon orbiting a gas giant in the Occaltus system.

  Jayleia’s records indicated she’d enlisted in the Armada against her parents’ wishes just prior to the mission. The expedition, led by Dr. Linnaeus Idylle, had found the colony deserted. During digs meant to determine what had happened to the colonists, the expedition personnel had been struck by a deadly plague.

  Of the 217 crewmembers on the mission manifest, five had survived. Dr. Idylle, Ari Idylle, Raj Faraheed, Pietre Ivanovich, and Jayleia Durante.

  The scope of the disaster had altered science ship protocols, first contact procedure, and even ship design throughout the known systems. Damen could only imagine what it had done to the survivors.

  “When the plague hit, we couldn’t leave the victims to die alone and in pain,” she said, her face pale and her gaze far away.

  “Three Hells,” V’kyrri breathed.

  The white edges of her lips and the fog of old nightmares in her eyes shook Damen. He’d reached for her before he could conquer the impulse.

  Some of the tension left her frame when he settled a hand on her shoulder.

  “Ari and I took turns holding the hands of the dying, trading off so we could sleep, though I don’t think either of us did. There wasn’t much we could do. None of us could, not that we knew at the time and Dr. Idylle and Raj had to try. Two hundred and twelve people died,” she said. “I talked to the ones I sat with, got them to talk to me. I wanted to know who they were, what had been lost.”

  A piece at a time, Jayleia returned from her corpse-lined past. Sorrow lingered in the bleak set of her features, but Damen knew she saw him when the color began returning to her face.

  She turned her gaze from his. “Omorle Lin, my bodyguard, was the twenty-second person to die on my watch.”

  “Didn’t he tell you he was your father’s best computer espionage agent? Didn’t he teach you before you went to work for your father?” Damen pressed. He felt the shimmer of anger in the muscles beneath his hand.

  “Of course I’ve worked with my
father and his personnel,” she snapped. “In the course of our research aboard the Sen Ekir, we gather significant data on the Chekydran that might one day be of tactical use. Even the plagues . . .”

  “You send your father copies of research data?” he interrupted.

  She blinked. “What else would I send?”

  He bared his teeth, enjoying the hunt. It distinctly wasn’t a smile. He saw her register that fact when she glanced into his face.

  Her scent changed, giving away her ire.

  “You’re telling the truth, as far as it goes, but there’s more.”

  “It’s all the truth you’re going to get, Major,” she countered, her features a study in neutrality.

  “How much did your father have Lin teach you about cyber-espionage?” he prodded. “Have I been chasing you through the Claugh nib Dovvyth’s computer systems for the past . . .”

  “Stop it,” V’kyrri demanded aloud, closing a hand around Damen’s arm.

  Jayleia shifted out from beneath Damen’s touch.

  V’kyrri’s mental voice sounded in his head. What are you doing?

  Damen glanced at his friend’s hand, still on his arm, and mentally answered. My job. Between what we suspect we’ll find in the Silver City data store and the information Jayleia’s father could bring us we . . .

  V’kyrri’s expression hardened. Damn it, Sindrivik, this is Jayleia. Not a tool. Not something you can use and toss aside. You’ve seen the signs. Someone has done a number on her. Conditioning, blocks, walls . . .

  . . . and the defenses she’s erected lock us out and cut her off from her heart, Damen finished for him. If I can’t pry her free, V’k, I’ll have to break her open.

  You want to shatter her, V’kyrri accused, his face and mental presence twisting with rage, just to see the pieces fly apart.

  Did he? The predator at his core stirred, intrigued at the prospect. His heartbeat stumbled at the thought. No. Not like that. Too bad. This was war. He had a job to do.

  If you have something I can use, let me hear it. Otherwise, I’ll use every weapon at my disposal to get at her.

  V’kyrri peered at him, hard.