stars26

Gillie and Rand intercepted Mack in the corridor not far from the shrine’s exit. The rumble of voices and sound of plodding, shuffling feet echoed off the dark gray bulkheads. The line at the entrance behind them was long but finally moving, as those who hadn’t been permitted inside during the ceremony were allowed in. Those departing the shrine did so quickly, as if anxious to avoid contact with Cirrus’s more common elements.

Gillie stepped to Mack’s side, Tobias and Pryor behind her. She wouldn’t tell him here what she’d sensed from Blass. Finding Trace was first priority. And as long as Gillie stayed near Mack, she felt she could counter whatever Blass tried to do. Rand appeared on his right. “Sir. We have a Code Six in progress.”

Other than a slight narrowing of his eyes, Mack showed no agitation at this news. But Gillie felt the tension ripple through him. “Understood. The club’s the only secure place—”

“My ship’s better,” Gillie put in. Blass could never board her ship. Plus, Simon could be an active participant in the discussion.

She caught a small glint of appreciation in Mack’s eyes at her offer.

“Agreed,” he said. “Gentlemen?” He glanced over his shoulder at Tobias and Pryor.

“Right behind you, sir.”

They wove through the crowd on the stairs. Mack caught her hand in his at one point, squeezed it, but there was little time for any personal concerns. Gillie suspected that everyone’s thoughts were on the Code Six: possible hostile intruder under surveillance.

Simon opened the hatch-lock door as they arrived. The interior walls of the ship glowed dimly, brightening as Gillie headed for her small ready room. Her ship was in full interior crystal phase now. There was nothing to hide.

Gillie waved Mack into the chair at the head of the table, took the one next to him. Tobias and Pryor filled the other two seats.

Rand remained standing, one hand resting lightly on the back of her chair. “We’ve got an FAC officer on station. Faydra Trace.”

Pryor uttered something harsh under his breath. Mack folded his hands on the tabletop, his face as impassive as if Rand had just announced the officers’ mess was substituting rice for potatoes. “Tell me.”

“I saw a woman in a blue jacket sitting in one of the upper rows during the shrine ceremony. There was something familiar about her but not enough for me to put a name to the face. I realized later it’s because she’s changed her appearance somewhat. Her hair color.” Rand touched her own dark hair.

“Captain Davré and I changed position to facilitate identification,” she continued. “She recognized Trace, a commodore with the FAC. I immediately saw she was correct.”

“Simon identified her, based on your security files,” Gillie said. “I don’t know Trace.”

Rand’s mouth started to open, then closed. Gillie guessed at her question. “I have a telepathic link with Simon, yes, Commander.”

Rand nodded, but her eyes were wide. She blinked, turned to Mack. “I’ve got two officers trailing her and have activated a pair of undercovers to intercept. We’ll pick her up for questioning on your command, sir.”

“Do we know how she arrived on station?” Mack asked Rand. “If she’s here on diplomatic sanction, both your office and mine would’ve been notified. Correction: should have been notified. Before I create an intergalactic incident, are we sure she’s here illegally?”

“Simon checked that,” Gillie said.

“Yes, sir, I did.” Simon’s voice spilled from the comm panel in the room. “She didn’t enter through any approved terminal on station. I checked visual and palm-scan records for the past two weeks. However, two unregistered ships discharged passengers in the shrine’s bay earlier. Lieutenant Tobias’s tracing program listed them as the Grateful Wanderer and Richford’s Azure Star. But since security cameras were disconnected I have no records there to verify who disembarked. I did, however, find a match for her palm scan in the Garamond Hotel registry. She registered two and a half hours ago under the name of Edrea Starne.”

Mack’s smile was thin. “A slight variation on her ancestor, Admiral Edrom Starke. He tried to take our system over three hundred years ago. Looks like history’s repeating itself.”

So Trace was Starke’s descendant. Gillie suddenly felt old.

Rand straightened. “Shall I have her picked up for questioning, sir?”

“Do it. I’ll notify HQ on Prime, just in case someone misfiled her diplomatic clearances.” The tone of Mack’s voice stated he knew such clearance didn’t exist. “Hold her in security and don’t, whatever you do, let this leak out to Halbert or the PH. Or Blass.”

Rand left, taking Tobias with her. Pryor returned to ops. Mack leaned back in his chair after the door closed behind Pryor, ran his hand over his face. Gillie sensed both the tension and the tiredness in him.

“She may not admit to working with Blass,” he said.

“She won’t have to.” Gillie waited for Mack to read between the lines of her answer.

“Sometimes I forget you’re a telepath.” He shook his head slowly. His tension, his weariness, overrode any other emotions she could sense from him. “You don’t look . . . well . . . I guess we’ve all always thought of Raheirans as being different from us.”

“We’re not. Except in a few minor things.”

“Sentient crystalships and telepathic talents are hardly minor.” He arched one eyebrow, but at least he was smiling. “It’s a good thing you’re on our side.”

I have been. For over three hundred years. Gillie had never felt that more strongly than now. “I need to be in on the interview with Trace from the beginning. I want her to know up front I’m Raheiran, that she can’t lie. We don’t have time to waste playing games with her, or Blass.”

“Agreed.” Mack’s face became serious. “I ran a few investigations of my own. Pulled in favors, checked with reliable sources on Blass. He’s been involved with Honora Trelmont for over two years, and his connections run deep. He’s also taken some interesting vacations lately, out to Tynder, and Ladrin One.”

Fleet maintained bases on those stations as well, Gillie knew. “Sounds like he was shopping for a place to stage his invasion.”

“Or he already has people there.”

Gods, yes. Had her tactical skills really deteriorated that much in the past month? She hadn’t foreseen that possibility, but she should have. She looked at Mack, nodded. “Sometimes,” she said, “I forget you’re the admiral. You don’t look . . . well . . . gruff and pompous and authoritative like others I’ve known.”

He smiled at her lighthearted rendition of his earlier comment, but any response was interrupted by the trill of his comm set. “Makarian.” He listened closely, nodded. “On our way.”

He turned back to Gillie. “Rand has our Code Six in custody.”

 

Fleet Security on Cirrus was a maze of inner offices and gray-walled corridors. Gillie followed Mack to a room not much larger than her own ready room, and not dissimilar in layout, with a long table with four chairs. But the wall by the door had additional chairs lining it. Tobias rose from one of those when Gillie and Mack walked in.

Rand stood also, then took her seat when Mack nodded. She was at the head of the table, the woman in the blue jacket at the other end. Sonicuffs locked the woman’s left wrist to the arm of her chair, but she didn’t seem the least bit discomforted by it. Nor by Mack’s arrival.

She was a muscular woman, her skin mottled like someone who’d been dirtside, out in the atmosphere recently, and wasn’t used to it. Her eyes were a dark amber color. They narrowed slightly under Gillie’s scrutiny.

Not mageline. Gillie did a brief mental scan of Faydra Trace, felt nothing other than suspicion. Apprehension. No fear. She was, after all, an FAC officer. No one ever faulted Fav’lhir military training.

“Commodore Trace.” Mack locked his hands behind his back, looked down at the brown-haired woman.

“You’re mistaken. My name’s Starne. Your officer here has my ID.”

There was a small datatab on the table in front of Rand. Mack glanced dismissively at it. “Your palm scan says otherwise.”

“So she said.” Trace jerked her chin in Rand’s direction. “Said I’m some Fav’lhir officer. Since I can’t ask the Fav’lhir to present proof your files are wrong, how can I defend myself?”

“That’s what I’m here to help with, Miselle Starne.” Gillie stepped away from Mack, extending her hand in a friendly greeting, trusting that if Trace wanted to stay in her assumed identity, she’d accept the offered handshake. “I’m Captain Gillaine Davré,” Gillie said as Trace clasped her hand. She squeezed the woman’s fingers lightly and, using the power of the rune stones, opened the first small pathway to create a mind link where she could read the woman’s every thought. “Raheiran Special Forces.”

Trace jerked her hand back with a violent move, then appeared to realize her mistake, tried to cover her reaction. “I . . . I thought you were with legal services. Not another grunt.”

“It won’t work, Trace.” Mack’s voice was stern. “Shall we get down to business?”

“This is crazy.” Trace shifted nervously in her chair. “You accuse me, then get one of your people to pretend to be a Raheiran witch.”

Gillie pulled her ward stones from her pocket, placed them in a line on the table. Their purple glow ran over her hand, up her arm. “I’m not pretending.”

Trace stared at the stones. “Good trick.”

Gillie smiled. The fear that was so noticeably absent before now radiated from Trace like a pulsing haze. “You can believe what you choose.” Gillie picked up the Ladri stone, held it between her fingers. She sent a trail of its energy toward Trace. The woman stiffened.

Gillie grasped at Trace’s mind with her own. Either you have gone totally mad, or what you see and hear is real.

Trace’s harsh gasp gave her her answer. The woman heard her—painfully, Gillie could tell, by the narrowing of her eyes, the tightness around her mouth. Even with the stones’ buffer, the experience of a telepath probing to an untrained mind was a shock. For once, Gillie didn’t care.

“Tell me about Carrickal Grel Te’lard Blass,” Gillie said, her voice deceptively soft.

Trace shot to her feet, her left arm straining against the cuff locked to the chair.

Mack stepped quickly in front of Gillie, like a pantrelon protecting its own. “Sit down, Commodore.”

Trace sat, but slowly. Gillie felt the woman’s emotions shift, change. Gone was the innocent-victim pretense, the helpless woman involved in a case of mistaken identity. The real Faydra Trace surfaced now. Hard. Defiant. Cold. The Snow Queen.

“You’ll get nothing from me.” Her words were terse, aimed at Mack.

Gillie kept a light monitor on Trace’s thoughts, aware that suicide was not an unlikely option. Trace appeared to wear no jewelry, so a small pill hidden in a ring or a pendant wasn’t an available means. But there were other ways, other places, other methods.

The stones on the table glowed softly. Gillie kept their power active. She touched the small Vedri stone, moved it to the right. The Khal, the largest, she pushed closer to Trace. “Have you ever seen Blass do this?” she asked conversationally.

Images flashed through her mind. Carrick Blass on a ship, not his. A Fav’lhir cruiser. She knew it as Trace knew it. Just as Trace hadn’t known the identity, or purpose, of the stones Blass had used that day. Only that Blass had moved the stones without touching them. Therefore, in Trace’s opinion, Gillie, who needed to handle the stones, wasn’t nearly as powerful.

Gillie looked up at Mack. “Blass met with her and her team about six months ago on board a ship called the Mezatarra. Fav’lhir Raider-class cruiser. Captain is—”

“Damn you to hell, you filthy witch!” Trace leaned forward, her face contorted in rage. “He’ll kill you. And I’ll be damned glad when he does.”

Mack went rigid. It was something Gillie felt more than saw. He was too much the professional to let his reactions show at this point. But he was also unable to keep those same, hidden feelings from washing over her. She had to pull herself mentally away from him. His emotions, especially his protective ones toward herself, threatened to overwhelm her. Threatened to interfere with the deep link she’d established with Trace when she’d clasped the woman’s hand.

She touched the stones again, adjusting their pattern. Rand watched from the other end of the table, eyes wide. Gillie couldn’t see Tobias behind her but felt his approval, his admiration. She needed that. Mack unsettled her.

“The Mezatarra’s captain is Almer Candler.” Gillie relived Trace’s memory as if it were her own. “He transferred three operatives under Commodore Trace’s command to Blass’s ship at that time. Blass took them to Tynder Station.” Mack had been right. There were other Fav’lhir agents in Khalaran space.

“Where else?” Mack asked.

Suddenly Trace moved, her right hand swinging out to knock the ward stones from the table. Mack was quicker. He grabbed her arm, yanked her to her feet.

“Don’t.” His face was dark, his tone, darker. If he had bared his teeth and revealed a pantrelon’s fangs, Gillie wouldn’t have been surprised.

Trace’s mouth thinned, but she sat once again.

“Mister Tobias.” Mack didn’t take his gaze from Trace’s face. “Lock a cuff on her other arm.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hatred. It burned around Faydra Trace as hotly as the mage cabinet’s spellforms had burned Gillie’s fingers earlier. Hatred at Tobias, who firmly held her arm down while he engaged the sonicuff. Hatred at Mack, who stood silently, authoritatively. Calmly.

Intense hatred at Gillie herself. A despised Raheiran. A witch who consorted with impures.

“Where else?” Mack repeated. “I want names, locations.”

Gillie drew the answers to Mack’s questions from Trace’s memories, in disjointed pieces at first as the woman fought as best she could, holding unrelated, nonsensical images in her mind. Thinking of songs, mathematical equations. Those things delayed Gillie but didn’t stop her.

Rand took notes on her datapad.

“Send that urgent, priority-coded, to HQ, Tynder, Primus, Ladrin. Advise ops to go to yellow-alert status.” Mack turned back to Trace. “It’s over, Commodore.”

“You can’t stop Carrick Blass.” Trace’s voice was raspy, strained. Her disgust at having her mind so summarily raked washed over Gillie.

“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Mack said.

Trace thrust her chin at Gillie. “With a telepath? A mere witch?” She smiled. “You’re good, Captain. But you’re not Blass. If you know anything at all about a Grel Te’lard, you know you can’t stop him. We will take this station away from you.”

Trace’s pride was her downfall. But it also presented Gillie with the most chilling revelation, one she’d feared hearing, one she had no way of stopping alone. She straightened slowly in her chair and tried to keep the note of urgency out of her voice. She didn’t want to give Trace the satisfaction of knowing the information worried her. “FAC has two starcruisers and a squadron of Rover-Twos using the mining rafts in Runemist as cover.”

“Damn you!” Trace realized her mistake too late.

“He’s integrated some crystal technology to the cruisers,” she continued, ignoring Trace’s outburst. “They’re emitting freighter readings but won’t pass a visual.” She hesitated, sorted images from Trace again. “That’s what happened a few weeks ago. Those two ships that attacked—or appeared to attack—this station. Blass and Commodore Trace were testing that technology, and testing Cirrus’s sensor capabilities.”

Mack glanced quickly at Tobias. “Inform the Vedritor. Code One, full alert.”

“Use my office,” Rand said as Tobias rose.

Mack turned his face toward Gillie. She shook her head. “That’s all she knows. Blass called her on station because he wanted her here before her ships move in. But she doesn’t know what his plans are with Rigo or Honora Trelmont.”

“Your loss,” Trace said bitterly.

That was true. “She was scheduled to meet with Blass and Rigo twenty minutes ago. They’re probably beginning to suspect something’s happened.” If they’d waited to bring Trace in, they might have learned Blass’s entire plan. But they also could have lost her, lost precious time as well.

Mack motioned to Trace. “Rand, get one of your people to take her back to lockup, then have your team meet me at the shrine in ten. We move on Blass. Now.”