Free Dark Space: The Invisible War by Jasper T. Scott Page B

Speaking of Kurlin, I should check on Alara,” he said, smoothly changing the topic. He felt privately sick that his son had such a convenient concept of right and wrong. Ethan touched his ear to activate his comm piece and then he said, “Call Kurlin Vastra.” The comm began to trill faintly in his ear, and a moment later the doctor picked up.
    “Doctor Kurlin!” Ethan said. “This is Overlord Dominic speaking. How is Alara doing?”
    Kurlin hesitated before replying. “Oh . . . hello, sir . . .” He sounded confused. “Alara’s not well, I’m afraid. She’s just suffered a relapse.”
    Ethan frowned. “Where is she now?”
    “Med bay. We’re looking after her. Why do you ask?”
    Ethan had momentarily forgotten that Alara was nobody to the overlord; they didn’t even know each other. But while Ethan had been Adan Reese, he had professed to have some sort of connection to her—a connection which Alara wouldn’t even recognize if she were in her right mind.
    All this identity switching was getting complicated.
    Ethan’s gaze flicked to Atton. “My new XO, Adan Reese, was asking about her. I’ll put him through to you now.”
    Ethan spoke aloud the command to transfer the comm call to Adan Reese, and then Ethan went back to his breakfast with a frown. He didn’t close the call on his end, so he was able to listen in as Atton did a good job of pretending to be concerned for a woman he’d never known. Ethan heard Kurlin relay the details of Alara’s regression—the incident in the mess hall with the lieutenant and then the subsequent reset which had knocked Alara unconscious.
    Apparently the only thing the Defiant’s barely-qualified medic had been able to do for Alara without knowing how to safely deactivate her slave chip, was to implant another chip which would fight against the first. The code word “reset” would temporarily interrupt the slave chip, but it seemed doing that had been so traumatic for her brain that she’d been knocked unconscious. She was awake now and still claiming to be Angel, but with less conviction than before. The medic had said she would be okay, but he’d strongly cautioned against using another reset. Alara would have to fight her programming on her own.
    Ethan gritted his teeth. Brondi was going to pay. His mind flashed back to what Atton had said about Tova’s mate aboard the Valiant and that brought a dark smile to his face. I hope he eats you, Ethan thought, but his next thought was that if Brondi died they would never get the deactivation codes they needed to safely remove Alara’s slave chip.
    It was hard to want someone both dead and alive at the same time.

Chapter 5
     

    V erlin stalked through the bowels of the Valiant with his team of scouts. Everywhere he went, the bounty hunter saw Brondi’s men walking beside big, hovering black garbage bins, using portable grav guns to pick up the bodies of the previous crew and drop them inside.
    Even Verlin’s stomach turned at the sheer numbers of the dead. Walking through the Valiant was like walking through a mausoleum. He turned his eyes to the fore and forced himself to focus. He and his team reached a rail car tunnel and waited for the car to arrive. Once it did, they piled in, ignoring the bodies inside the car. Verlin turned to the directory beside the doors. He searched the ship for probable locations to hide something—what was he looking for anyway? What could old Dominic have been hiding?
    This is a wild rictan hunt, Verlin thought as he punched in a random destination—the med lab. Good as any. He went to find a seat as far as possible from the nearest body.
    Brondi was wasting his time, but with the amount of Sols he was being paid, Verlin supposed that he couldn’t complain. He settled his head back against the side of the car just as it began whooshing through the ship.
    *  *  *
    Roan glared at the door of his prison, willing it to open. His slitted yellow eyes had been fixed on that spot for