The Iron Admiral: Deception (13 page)

“This is a working training trip,” she replied. “The idea is to give you all some experience of what it’s like to be doing this sort of work on a living, breathing war ship. We need to look at it as very much a team thing. I’m accommodated in a VIP suite but I’ll mess with you. Except not tonight. I’ll be attending the SOM this evening, under orders.”

Anna and Sirikit exchanged a smile, Hassan smirked and Tensan, frowning slightly, scratched his lip.

Todd folded his arms and looked at the floor. Some strange undercurrent hung around all of them.

Whatever it was, Todd’s reaction was different to the others.

Anna cleared her throat. “Um… There’s been lots of rumors about the Fleet Ball…”

“Yes?” Allysha folded her arms to hide the jolt of alarm. Was Sean’s visit public knowledge, or more to the point, had somebody found out she’d actually stayed at Saahren’s apartment?

“Yeah,” Hassan drawled. “We kept getting asked questions about you and the GA. They showed some images from the ball on the screens in the space port and there was this scene of you dancing with him.”

Todd stirred and nodded, a shadow in his blue eyes. Tensan, clearly uncomfortable, passed a hand across his mouth. Anna and Sirikit tried to suppress smiles. Hassan grinned.

Allysha cringed inside. The gossip and innuendo had started before the ball ended, and Todd’s reaction simply underlined that Saahren was right about how the young man felt. She’d have to distance herself from him, if only to protect Todd. “So?”

Anna wriggled in her chair. “There’s all this… stuff… about you and him. The GA. Hassan’s made a database.” She turned to Hassan for support.

Hassan laughed and took up the story. “Most of it’s stupid. People say they saw you leave together, that you spent the night with him; you arriving in his shuttle will fuel that one.” He grinned as Allysha rolled her eyes. He glanced through the entries on his pad. “Someone saw the two of you… er… in a passionate embrace in the Fleet gardens—”

“Oh, please.” Allysha ran a hand through her hair. “What total unadulterated, fanciful, Poonta swill.” She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh, well. I’ll just have to negotiate the asteroids until it gets replaced by the next gossip topic.”

“So whydid you come in the grand admiral’s shuttle, ‘Lysha?” asked Todd.

“My morning meeting with Grand Admiral Saahren had to be cancelled,” she replied without hesitation.

She’d prepared for this question. “Something else more important. He didn’t have any other free time, so, since I was going to be onArcturus anyway, we had our discussion on the shuttle trip.”

The explanation was plausible and they accepted it, as she’d known they’d have to. Todd looked relieved. Now that she knew to look, his infatuation was so obvious. Trust Saahren to notice.

“What’s he like?” Anna said, leaning forward eagerly.

Allysha heaved a sigh. “We’re not going to get anything done until I satisfy your curiosity, are we? He’s about… let’s see…” she stood up and raised her hand, “about this tall—”

“No,” interrupted Anna, wrinkling her nose, “what’s he like as a person?”

“He’s smart, asks intelligent questions, listens to answers. He’s very good at his job, domineering, autocratic and arrogant.”Careful. I’m getting snarky; not a good idea . Then there were the other things, a

parade of images flicking through her mind; making love with him, swinging above the crashing waves of the ocean held tightly in his grip, his face as she dived in front of him to save him from an assassin’s weapon.

“Oh, c’mon, ‘Lysha,” sighed Anna.

Sirikit had been quiet throughout the discussion. Now she asked, very softly, “Is he Brad?”

“What?” Oh, buckrats. She should have realized one of them would have made the connection.

The others looked on, silent and interested.

“Is Brad really Grand Admiral Saahren? The one that sends you love lilies?” Sirikit asked.

Blast and damnation. Drat the girl. Too smart by half. She raised an eyebrow. “Last time I heard, the grand admiral’s given name was Chaka.” She hoped she sounded a lot cooler than she actually was.

Anna opened her mouth, her eyes sparkling. Oh, this was spiraling out of control. Allysha raised her hands. “Enough. I worked with Grand Admiral Saahren over the Carnessan crisis. That’s it, nothing more

to say. And since we’re all here, we might as well do some work.” She brought the schematic for an InfoDroid up on the display. “Let’s work through it together.”

She kept them working for an hour before she finally said, “That’ll do for today. Have a big think about what you’ve seen. There are at least six ways to improve the security on this system. See if you can come

up with four between you for tomorrow morning. Before breakfast. I’ll see you here.”

They trooped out obediently and she locked the door behind her.

A request to the ship’s IS elicited directions to the VIP suite Allysha had used last time she’d been on Arcturus . She walked through the sitting room with its dark blue leather lounge suite and into the bedroom. Her belongings had been stowed in the drawers and the closet. And there hung the dress Saahren had mentioned, made from the material Allysha had admired at the Cusang market; soft and green with shots of gold. She slipped the garment on and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t have designed a more suitable gown herself. Simple, floor length with a scooped neckline, it showed enough cleavage to be interesting. It was beautiful, quite magnificent and made just for her.

She scowled at herself. Oh, buckrats, why did he have to pre-empt like that? If she’d wanted the material, she would have bought it. And he’d even had a dress made without consulting her. He ordered her around, told her what to do and now he was dressing her up like his own little doll.

Well, not any longer. She took the dress off, not without a moment of regret, and hung it back in the closet.

True to form, Saahren was punctual, immaculate in white dress uniform. He frowned at Allysha, who stood defiantly in black slacks and a white shirt.

“I told you to wear a dress.”

“And I told you I didn’t bring one.”

“The dress in the closet—”

“Isn’t mine.” She folded her arms.

Saahren sank down on the arm of the couch, brows lowered, puzzled. “Allysha, the dress is beautiful.

Ventaris designed it especially for you.”

Ventaris. Allysha schooled her expression. A Ventaris design would have cost a small fortune. She hardened her heart. “Look, stop trying to run my life. I’m not a… a doll for you to dress and show off.

You don’t own me, you don’t have the right to tell me what to do except where it relates to my work. I will not wear that dress.”

Rubbing his forehead with his fingers he sighed. “I don’t understand. I’m the same man you loved on Tisyphor.” He flung his arms out, hands open. “What should I do, Allysha? You don’t want gifts, you don’t want me to protect you. I tell you I love you and you turn away.”

He waited for a reply. When none came, he said again, “What should I do?”

His black eyes flashed with anger, frustration, regret? She wasn’t sure. “Let me be me.” She brushed her hand back through her hair. There were so many questions, so many things that didn’t make sense. “My life has changed so much.”

She looked away. Sean, Xanthor and him. Okay, he hadn’t bombarded Jossur but her father was still dead. Sure, in a corner of her being she couldn’t avoid the fact that she had feelings for Saahren but her father’s death weighed heavily on her. She couldn’t get involved with the man who’d killed him. What could Xanthor tell her? She needed to go home. She needed space, time. Once she’d cleared up where she’d come from she could move forward.

“Will I be allowed into the SOM in trousers?”

“If that’s your decision.”

Saahren ushered her into a large, carpeted room paneled with dark wood. The Fleet’s galaxy symbol hung prominently on one wall, along with what she assumed was the ship’s own crest—a shield depicting

a rampant, dragon-like creature with the word ‘Arcturus’ across the top. A long row of similar crests, each with a unit number, hung along one wall. A group of comfortable-looking armchairs surrounding five

round tables clustered in a corner but the dozen officers in the room stood, many with a glass in hand, chatting together. All eyes turned to Saahren and Allysha. She felt like a rabbit in a spotlight.

A quick, silent check with theArcturus IS established that the handsome, debonair man she’d glimpsed in the hangar bay was Admiral Valperez, the dark haired older man next to him wasArcturus’s commanding officer Captain Karl Pedder, and the shorter, wiry man beside him was Captain Farad, the ship’s executive officer.

Admiral Valperez stepped forward. “Welcome Miss Marten. May I say how nice it is to have you join us? A pity you didn’t bring the lovely dress you wore last evening.” He grinned at her expression.

“We’ve all seen the pictures from the ball.”

Oh, great. She forced a smile, aware of Saahren’s silence. “I didn’t have much time to prepare.”

By now, several other officers had joined their circle.

“Looks like dinner is ready,” Captain Pedder said. “Let’s go through.”

Allysha sat between Captain Pedder and Admiral Valperez, and opposite Saahren. To her surprise, the Fleet ball was the main topic of conversation with considerable interest in the speeches as well as who was there and who they’d arrived with. She joined in with the men beside her. She wouldn’t talk tohim ; she wouldn’t.

Somewhere between the entrée and main course Admiral Valperez leaned toward her. “How are you going with these officers you’re training?”

“They’re doing well. It hasn’t been easy for any of them, having to learn that most of what they’ve been taught is built on very shaky ground, but once that got through, we started to get somewhere.”

“What do you mean, shaky ground?” Valperez asked.

“That an IS is not the answer to all questions, that it’s built on very deep foundations that can be full of holes, that InfoDroids are not all knowing and can be fooled.”

Valperez swirled the wine in his glass. “Can you explain in a way that a mere Fleet admiral can grasp?”

“I can try.” Anything to avoid talking to Saahren, or even looking at him.

He nodded. “Please do. I’ve heard what you can do.” Valperez leaned on his elbow, hand supporting his chin.

She explained as best she could. At least this man had technical knowledge. Soon they were talking data flows and system schematics. One or two others listened in.

“What it comes down to is I find the redundancies in the system and exploit them,” she said.

“And if there are no redundancies?”

“There are. Always. But if it’s easier, I find the holes. And if there aren’t any holes, I make them. It’s part of the challenge. I love it.” Just thinking about her work made her smile. She did love it. Systems were her passion.

“What about the ptorix systems? They’re so different to ours.”

“But they do the same things. Crack the code and you’re there.”

“We’ve done that. More or less. But that’s with things like navigation or weapons. Even their color coding is difficult to grasp, since they see a different range of the spectrum to us.”

“I think I know what you mean,” she said. “They don’t think in the same way as humans. And really, you have to be able to do that to understand their logic. I can do that because I grew up with them.”

Valperez ran his thumb along his lip. “These officers you’re training. Will they be as good as you?”

Allysha shook her head. “No, and it’s totally unrealistic to expect them to be. I’ve done this all my life; my father trained me. They will have half a year of instruction from me and before they could really learn, they’ve had to unlearn lots of things they believed to be true. They’re making remarkable progress all things considered.”

Captain Pedder frowned. “What do you mean half a year?”

“That’s the term of my contract with the Fleet. Five months of instruction, starting from the selection of the five officers. It means I’ve got four weeks and four days to go, but who’s counting; then I go home to

Carnessa.”

Valperez looked at Saahren.

“That’s correct,” Saahren said. “Forty-four days.”

“With your permission, Grand Admiral, may I be excused?” Allysha asked as sweetly as she could manage, her gaze fixed on his chin. “I was up fairly late last night.”

He hadn’t missed the irony. “You may. Good night.”

She smiled around the table, rose and left the room.

****

“Just as well she’s on our side, then,” Valperez retorted.

“Why is she here, Sir?” Farad asked Saahren.

Saahren explained, as he had to Pedder and Valperez in the transit. He didn’t mention O’Reilly’s visit.

Farad was right; the Khophirate or the GPR would pay any sort of sum to buy Allysha. That was why O’Reilly was after her, he was certain. But he was equally certain she wouldn’t be doing anything to help her ex-husband. And soon Leonov’s people would have the piece of filth. He could hardly wait.

“Can we get back to that half-year contract?” Valperez said. “You’re surely not going to let her go back to Carnessa, Chaka?”

Saahren shrugged. “Half a year was the best I could do at the time. I was lucky to get that much.”

“But those kids won’t be able to do what she does in another… what was it? A month?” Valperez said.

“Those officers will never be able to do what she does,” Saahren said. “Then again, a lot of things can happen in a month.”

Valperez’s lips curved into a sly grin. “You could always marry the girl. I know it’s a lot to ask but think of the Fleet, the Confederacy.”

Everybody chuckled. His reputation with women was well known.

Saahren smiled with them. It was none of their business. But after all, he’d made his intentions obvious.

“I intend to. And on that note, gentlemen, I will bid you goodnight.”