Free Hope's Folly by Linnea Sinclair Page B

Carver-Twelve, would you be able to press the trigger?”
    Did he really doubt that? “Absolutely, sir.”
    He pulled his Carver out of the right side of his shoulder holster and held it up toward her. The grip of a second Carver—another 12, she thought—curved out of the left side.
    She took it, not understanding. Did he mean for her to carry his weapon? A small thrill raced through her. Okay, it wasn't that small. A Carver-12, and his as well. It was still warm from the heat of his body.
    “Why haven't you pressed the trigger?” he asked quietly.
    “Why would I—” She stopped and stared at him. If I put you in the same room with the man responsible for the death of your father and handed you a Carver-Twelve …
    No, that wasn't possible. He couldn't have—
    “Sit, Rya. We need to talk about your father.”
    Still grasping the Carver, she lowered herself to her knees, her legs suddenly feeling boneless. She'd seen no official reports on her father's death. There were no official reports, only bare information that Tage had dissolved the Admirals’ Council and then had the emperor's Special Reserve Guard—rumored to be an elite and secretive division in ImpSec—move against those officers he'd deemed traitors. Her father being one of them.
    “How did he … What happened?”
    “A farce,” he said after a moment. “A deadly one. You don't convene a High Command strategy session on Raft Thirty, not even an unofficial one. I should have realized that. I should have told my people not to leave their ships until I'd spoken to Tage. If I had … ” He went silent, shaking his head.
    “Tage is—was—first barrister,” she said. “The emperor's second in command. How could you know—”
    “I knew what he'd done against Sullivan, and against my wife. But I wanted desperately to believe that the man I'd known and admired for decades could still be reasoned with.”
    Rya barely heard the rest of his sentence. Her mind had latched on to one word and not moved beyond. Wife. His wife.
    Philip Guthrie was married.
    Of course he was, idiot. Not every man wore a wedding ring. He was an admiral. His family was wealthy. He was handsome. Respected.
    He had a wife.
    She shook herself. This was not about her dreams. This was about what had happened to her father and the Empire she once believed in. And what she was going to do about it.
    “I thought this was my chance to make Tage see reason,” he was saying. “He said he wanted my input. He said the Empire was coming to a crucial turn. I saw the same thing. So I followed Tage's orders to bring specific captains and officers he'd named to meet with him for the strategy session on Raft Thirty.” He stopped, his fist clenching, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and hard. “It was a massacre.”
    That much Rya had heard, though not how or why her father came to be on Raft Thirty, other than it was on Tage's orders. But it had been on Philip's orders too.
    Pain battered her heart.
    “I know it's no consolation,” Philip said, “but I killed the man who shot your father. And I will live with your father's death on my soul's slate to the end of my days.”
    “Because you followed orders,” she said.
    “Some of the best men and women the Empire ever produced died because of it. Their deaths haunt me, but that doesn't excuse my failure. Or the fact that I'm alive and they're not.” He wiped one hand over his face.
    “Which brings me to the reason I need to talk to you. I suspect very strongly you're looking to avenge your father's death and you see the recommission of the Stockwell as your sign to do so. I know how you feel. Believe me, I know. But you need to take those stars out of your eyes, Lieutenant. This is going to be a tough, dirty mission with a haphazard crew under the command of someone who has made mistakes and will continue to do so. It's going to be against enemies we know, enemies we don't know, and friends who have their own agendas. Right