Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) (6 page)

Hal was relieved Jasa seemed calmer than she had been when she'd first walked in. “If we can get on with our mission of delivering Vilk, and then scoop up those Krik straight afterward, we'll have Fiona back at Battle Center very soon.”

That should be the extent of their excitement. After all, as he'd said earlier, unlike Rose, Fiona didn't come with a Class 5 battleship as part of the deal. She wouldn't have been fighting for survival on the Garmman trader if she had.

Rose McKenzie had not landed, cringing against a wall, into Grihan life. She'd brought a banned thinking system into the Grih fold, sparked a power shift in Battle Center, and stirred up the balance of power on the United Council.

Fiona Russell was hopefully going to be a lot less trouble.

F
ee thought
she'd feel more.

More relieved. More safe. More happy.

She looked down at herself, at the too long sleeves and trouser legs of the clothes she'd been given, and fought back tears.

She needed to find the core of steel that had kept her going these last months. But without someone to fight against, without the hatred for Tak and his officers that had fed her resistance and her determination, she was . . . done.

It was exhaustion, probably. And uncertainty.

There were undercurrents here she didn't understand.

Talk of Class 5s and Vilk waving his hand at her and calling her 'this' with barely suppressed panic. Like she was a whole huge set of problems, all on her own.

She hadn't expected anything when the Grih had stumbled on her, she'd just hoped that things would get a little better.

They'd gotten more than just a little better. She was clean, she'd had a cup of something delicious she couldn't remember the name of and when she got up the energy to leave the room, she'd get medical treatment.

The fact that her clothes were too big was nothing.

Nothing!

She sucked in a deep breath, and rolled up the sleeves and legs. The soft burgundy top and pants were so much nicer than the hard, scratchy uniform Tak had given her.

A polite chime sounded from the door and she froze, let her eyes go to her bed to double-check the encryptor was properly hidden.

Under the mattress was a cliché, but for now it was the best she had.

The chime sounded again, and she walked hesitantly forward. Jasa thought the fact that she had guards should reassure her. It didn't. It worried her.

Protecting her from some rogue Grihan officers didn't make sense, along with so many other things. But she'd work it out. She just needed to let Jasa patch her up, eat something, and get a good night's sleep without worrying about whether tomorrow would be the day someone got up the nerve to kill her.

Put that way, she'd come a long way since this morning.

Before she reached the door, it opened, and she stumbled to a stop in surprise.

Pila stood in the doorway, and he must have seen the shock on her face.

“Apologies. We had orders from the doctor to enter if you didn't answer because of your concussion.”

She gave a tight nod. “I was trying to get my uniform to fit.” She held out her arms.

Pila frowned, and Carmain stared at her from over his shoulder. “Doctor Jasa has asked us to take you back to the medical chamber.”

She had the sense they would have liked to have engaged her in conversation, but as she stepped out to join them in the passageway, the strange alien who'd been present during the interrogation of Tak and his officers approached, and they were suddenly all business.

“Liaison Officer Kwo.” Pila was polite, but he held his shockgun in both hands. Carmain had taken a position behind Fee, angling her body to see down the passage in both direction.

Fee tried to work out if they were simply being protective or whether they thought Kwo was a genuine threat.

“Captain Vakeri is serious in his determination that this new orange is protected.” Kwo's voice sounded as if his words were being formed from a plucked, vibrating harp string.

The reference to orange again. Vakeri had called her an orange when he'd first found her.

Fee decided she must be misunderstanding the word, or had somehow gotten it wrong when she'd learned Grih from her handheld. Looking at Kwo's huge eyes, she very much doubted they saw colors the same way, anyway.

“You were here to see Fiona?” Carmain asked him. Like Pila, her voice was polite, but she didn't lower her weapon.

“I would like to make an appointment with her, yes. I need to submit a full report to the United Council, and her testimony would be useful.”

“Is Fiona all right?” Jasa's sharp, worried question turned everyone's attention in the doctor's direction. She had come up behind Kwo, and stopped, frowning at the sight of them, guns up and ready to rumble.

“I'm fine.” Fee decided it was time to remind them all she was standing right there, listening to them talk about her.

Jasa turned to Kwo. “What did you want with Fiona?”

“Just to talk to her. I pose no threat.” Kwo made a gesture with his hands that seemed to convey gross overreaction on Pila and Carmain's part.

“Well, you can't. Not until she's finished on the regeneration bed.”

Kwo gave a bow. “My apologies. I thought she was finished in the medical room.”

“
She
is right here, and can speak for herself.” Fee had kept her emotions locked down tight while she'd been on Tak's ship, and the habit was hard to break. Even to her own ears, she only sounded mildly annoyed.

Everyone looked at her, with varying degrees of surprise and embarrassment.

“Sorry, Fiona.” Jasa clasped her hands in front of her. “It's your choice, of course, but I'd urge you to allow me to heal you, before you do anything else.”

Fee looked over at Kwo. “What do you need from me, beyond what I already told you on Tak's ship? And who are you, exactly?” Everyone seemed to know all about her but she was in the dark about them.

Kwo moved his head from side to side in a rocking motion. “Forgive me, I am the liaison appointed by the United Council to this battleship. An officer representing the council is assigned to each ship belonging to United Council members. It keeps all activities transparent and facilitates communication.”

In other words, it stopped people breaking the rules.

“Why wasn't there a liaison on Tak's ship?” Her life would have been completely different if there had been.

Kwo rocked a little faster. “The
Fasbe
is a commercial ship, not government owned. Although I agree that it would be ideal to have a liaison on commercial ships as well, there are so many of them, it wouldn't be viable.” He suddenly went still. “I merely require a more formal statement from you. I'm afraid the situation on the Garmman trader was emotionally charged, and perhaps you didn't think to include some of the details.”

The idea of having to talk about what had happened to her again made her want to turn back to her room and curl up on her bed.

But she had been given a choice and she made it. “No. I think it's best I have my injuries seen to first.”

Jasa gave a decisive nod. “Good.” She turned on her heel and walked away, and with a smooth move, Pila stepped around Kwo, keeping his eyes on the liaison, and waited for Fee to follow him.

There was so much going on here, and with every step she took toward the med chamber, Fee decided she'd made the right decision not to speak with Kwo. She needed to be physically well, to eat something that she actually enjoyed, and to sleep.

And then she'd be ready to take on this new world she'd been dropped into.

“
W
e have a problem
.”

Hal looked up at Gerbardi, and canceled the comm he was about to put through to Rial. His communications officer tugged distractedly at his hair.

“We've lost contact with Battle Center.”

Hal went still. Silence settled over the rest of the officers on the bridge. “Define 'lost contact'.”

“All comms sent in the last ten minutes have just bounced back. Our connection is gone.” Gerbardi tapped at the screen in front of him, looked back at Hal. “It doesn't make sense. Something is interrupting the signal, but there's no logical reason why.”

Hal's first thought was the Krik. They had surprised him with their sophisticated signals duplicator and the ease with which they'd gained access to the mining vessel they'd attacked. But they were by now struggling in the hostile environment on the barren plains of Balco, and there was no way they could be messing with a Grih battleship and its encrypted comms to Battle Center.

Unless they hadn't been alone.

If there was more than one Krik pirate ship, it started to make a little more sense, and it also meant he'd better hurry if he wanted to catch the Krik crew stranded on Balco, or their friends would get to them first.

“What are the chances a second Krik vessel is blocking comms?” He flicked his gaze to Voa, his explorations officer. She was already scanning the area, flicking through screen after screen.

She shook her head. “If they're out there, they're well hidden.”

“And if they're blocking comms, it's selective, because I can still reach the ships in our immediate vicinity.” Gerbardi tapped at his screen again. “I can even reach Larga Ways.”

Hal stood. He'd been waiting for Hoke to get back to him, tell him whether they should deliver Vilk to Larga Ways and then return, or head straight back with Fiona Russell.

If long-range comms were down, the decision was up to him, and he wanted Vilk off his ship, and the Krik tracked down.

Fiona Russell didn't seem to have any specific information on what the Tecran were up to. Battle Center could wait for whatever it was she had to say.

He'd have put that argument to Hoke if she'd told him to come straight back, but he'd had the feeling the admiral wanted Vilk off their hands just as much as he did.

“Right, that makes it easy. We pilot the mining vessel in convoy with us to Larga Ways, and Rial and Favri pilot the
Fasbe
so it comes with us, too. I'm not leaving anyone out here alone.”

The order eased some of the tension that had been riding him. He didn't want to leave any of his crew out here. Especially if a second Krik vessel was lurking. It would be a death sentence.

Liaison Officer Kwo stepped onto the bridge, frowning at his handheld. “There seems to be a problem communicating with United Council headquarters.” He waved his handheld in Gerbardi's direction.

“We've lost long range comms. We can't get hold of Battle Center, either, but nearspace comms are working fine,” Hal told him.

“What could be interfering with long range comms, though?” Kwo's words were calm enough, but Hal sensed the liaison was feeling more emotion than he let on.

Hal watched him closely. “If it's the Krik, we can't find them.”

“What if it's the Garmman?” Voa asked.

There was a thought.

Hal leaned back in his chair. Things were definitely less friendly between the Grih and the Garmman since it emerged that the Garmman United Council member, Fu-tama, had been the driving force behind the Class 5 project. He'd taken two-hundred year-old Grihan blueprints for vessels created to be run by banned thinking systems, and allied himself with the Tecran to build them.

His end game still wasn't clear, although it seemed certain he had planned to use the firepower of the Class 5s to subdue any opposition.

He was dead now. Killed by one of Hal's superior officers in a mad attempt to minimize the damage, but while Rose McKenzie had brought two of the Class 5s with her when she'd allied herself with the Grih, there were still three out there, and they were under Tecran control.

Garmman officials claimed absolute ignorance on whatever it was Fu-tama had been up to, and given he'd gone to the Tecran, rather than his own people, to build the Class 5s, Hal was inclined to believe them.

But it didn't hurt to be cautious.

“Is it possible the Garmman have come up with a way to block comms to Battle Center and the UC?”

Gerbardi shook his head. “Unless our intelligence has missed something huge, the Garmman don't have anything that could interfere. The only recent case I know of where signal to Battle Center was blocked was a month ago, and that was by the thinking system Sazo.”

Sazo controlled a Class 5 battleship.

And last time the Grih had stumbled across a Class 5, there'd been a woman from Earth around, as well.

Hal looked up, found Kwo watching him.

“You're thinking of Fiona Russell,” Kwo said.

“I'm wondering what she was doing ten minutes ago.” Although she'd had nothing on her when she'd come aboard, and even her handheld was still over on the
Fasbe
.

And again, if she was in league with a Class 5, why had she been barely surviving on Tak's ship?

“I can answer that.” Kwo tucked his handheld under a thin arm. “She was speaking to me in the passageway outside her room.”

Hal stood. “What did you want with her?”

“Nothing sinister.” Kwo looked at him through huge, dark eyes. “I merely needed a more formal statement for my UC report. The guards you set seemed overly protective.”

Hal studied Kwo's face, but it was hard to judge expression when it came to the Fitali. Their skin was much less elastic than the Grih's, their eyes big but static. “I told them to treat every interaction as potentially suspicious. I don't want what happened to Rose McKenzie to happen to Fiona. We don't know who the other officers are who were in league with Fu-tama.”

“I've read the report of what happened on the
Barrist
.” Kwo inclined his head. He said nothing more, but Hal thought he was still annoyed at being questioned.

Tough.

He didn't let that feeling show on his face, though. He bowed back and realized he had too much energy to resume his seat.

It would take a few hours for the mining vessel to catch up to their position, and all they could do was monitor the nearspace environment for threats until it got here. It would also take longer to get to Larga Ways with the miner and the Garmman trader in convoy, but rather that than split up his crew.

Hal paced to the door.

He might as well go and find Fiona Russell, and see if she really didn't know anything about the Class 5s.

The
Barrist's
captain, Dav Jallan, hadn't realized Rose McKenzie was hiding the existence of a thinking system from him when she'd come onboard his ship.

Hal didn't intend to make the same mistake.