Free The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy by Greta van Der Rol Page A

through his proboscis, slept. Then on the third day the ptorix began to cough, a harsh, wheezing sound coming from his speaking mouth. A day later the ptorix’s fur darkened, his eyes dimmed and he
    seeped ichor from his mouth and proboscis, seeming to shrink in his robe. His screams of agony set
    Saahren’s teeth on edge. The victim lay on the ground, blackened tentacles twitching. Finally, even they were still.
    Allysha stood beside him, her arms wrapped around herself.
    “This is awful,” she whispered. Her body shook.
    He slid an arm around her shoulders, holding her tightly against him. “Turn it off.”
    She flung her arms around him and sobbed into his chest.
    “Looks like they found the virus,” he said into her hair.
    “Yes. Because of me.”

Chapter Twelve
    “What do you mean, because of you?” Brad said.
    She wiped her face with her sleeve. Her fault, she’d handed it to them. She pushed the words out,
    forced them out of her mouth. “The experimenter’s name was Korns. The notes say he developed a
    culture from saliva. He and I were… friends. The only person here I could talk to at all. I showed him the last mine manager’sghabra and he took it away to sterilize it.” Tears welled again. “He said it might contain the virus. Looks like it did.”
    She struggled against the tears but it was too awful. In her mind’s eye she could see the scenes as
     
    Fyysor painted them; the images from the experiments gave them three dimensional color. Her fault.
    She’d been too trusting, so naive. She flung her arms around Brad and sobbed into his shirt. He stroked her hair and let her cry. She straightened up. This wasn’t helping.
    He pushed her gently away so he could see her face. “All cried out?”
    She nodded.
    “We need to think, decide how best to act. Come on, I’ll take you back to your room.”
    One arm around her waist, he led her back to the main drive. His warm fingers held her close to his side, a pillar of sanity. She felt protected, secure with him. She went up the stairs in front of him and into her room.
    “Will you be all right?” he said.
    “Yes. I’m sorry to be such a girl. I’m glad to have a friend.” She put a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek.
    The look in his eyes was unmistakable.Not now, Brad; not yet . She stepped away from him and he
    swallowed. She wasn’t doing this very well, not very well at all. “I feel so bad about this. If somebody uses that virus…”
    “It would mean war with the ptorix. We have to stop it.”
    Hope shone a chink of light into the veil of darkness enveloping her. “How?”
    “Well, there are explosives here. You have the skill to destroy their data. I can set explosives to blow up the lab. We can take shardite from the secret warehouse.”
    They could, yes. “I can reset the inventory so nobody will know.”
    “Yes. I thought you could. We’ll also have to steal a ship to escape.”
    “You can fly a ship?”
    “Yes. It’s not hard, my love. In fact a ship’s information system does most of the work. But it must
    recognize the pilot to obey instructions so I’ll need for you to work out how to do that, how to give me authority to command the ship.”
    My love. She’d let that one go by for now. “Where do I find out how to do that?”
    “The military InfoDroid,” he said.
    “Of course.” She felt better already at the prospect of doing something useful. “When do we move?
    How long have I got?”
    “We’ll have tomorrow to prepare and tomorrow night we’ll make a move.”
    “Where to from here?”
     
    “We’ll head for Chollarc. I have a ship there. Then we can head on to Malmos and get married.”
    Her heart jolted. “Married?”
    “Yes. I love you.”
    The very notion took her breath away. No question, no argument. For Brad Stone, it seemed, one led to the other. “You’ve only known me for five minutes.”
    “I fell in love with you the first time I set eyes on you. I feel like I’ve waited for