Free Dark Horse by Michelle Diener

had the earpiece. He had to be able to contact her.
    “Nothing to say?” she asked quietly.
    “Unless youʼre talking, I canʼt hear that much over the sound of the river. I didnʼt know if you were alone or not.” His tone was almost sulky.
    She thought through the implications of that. He couldnʼt be in the Grihʼs systems yet, watching her with the lenses on the exterior of their ship.
    “Why did you go out of range?” The words were spoken so quietly she barely heard them over the sound of the water.
    “To warn Captain Jallan that there might be a program on our little space craft that will try to break into his shipʼs systems. That I might have something embedded in me, for that matter.” She hadnʼt known she was going to be honest with him, but as sheʼd thought through her answer, thought of the lies she could tell, sheʼd dismissed them all.
    Either Sazo and her dealt fairly with each other or they didnʼt deal.
    There was silence, and she closed her eyes, moved her feet around, churning up the cooler water from below the surface, mixing it with the sun-warmed water above. The contrast sent a shiver through her.
    “Why did you do that?”
    “Because you killed nearly five hundred Tecran, without letting me know anything about it.” She tipped her face up to the setting sun and let the last red rays warm her cheeks.
    He hesitated before he spoke. “They deserved it.”
    “They were obeying orders. And the captain, his officers, they survived. What happened to us both, that was on the commanders, but theyʼre the ones still breathing.”
    It sounded like he hissed, not something sheʼd ever heard from him before, and she wondered if he was picking things up from her.
    “I wanted them to hurt .”
    She lifted her feet out the water, gripped her knees. “Me, too. Likely, just the fact that you ousted the captain, handed his ship to the Grih, hurts him. The only good thing about what you did is that the Grih didnʼt have a fight on their hands. You probably saved a few Grih lives, and when we finally come clean about your part in this, thatʼs the angle weʼll go with.”
    “You didnʼt come clean already?”
    “No.” She dropped her feet back in the water and kicked a little, increasing the sounds of splashing around her. “I thought about it, after hearing what you did, but my word is my word. Weʼll have to tell them at some point though, Sazo.”
    He didnʼt respond immediately, because heʼd always refused to tell her the whole plan. Bits of it, yes, but sheʼd always known he had another agenda. And sheʼd still agreed to help him, partner with him, because the alternative was to stay a prisoner of the Tecran.
    She let it go. Theyʼd been over this ground more times than she could count, and he wouldnʼt budge.
    “You obviously didnʼt break into their system yet.”
    When he didnʼt respond again, she thought he was still sulking, but then she heard the quiet ʽNoʼ.
    He was embarrassed, not sulking.
    “Itʼs like they have specific protection against me,” he said eventually.
    She couldnʼt pretend she wasnʼt relieved about it. Except . . . “Then there is no way to hide the fact that Iʼm wearing an earpiece from them. I only remembered about it after Iʼd already lain down for the scan, but I could hardly have taken it out without being seen beforehand anyway.”
    “They wonʼt pick it up.” Sazo sounded a little less edgy, as if heʼd calmed down. “Iʼll try to monitor them, although itʼs difficult with the underground waterfall, but the earpiece is a special piece of technology. It scans as a part of your ear.”
    “And can their system pick up your transmission to me now? Itʼs a signal of some kind, after all.”
    Sazo made a sound similar to one of her snorts. “If I was stupid, they could. My transmissions are so close to their own signal signatures, it would be impossible for them to tell the difference.”
    “Captain Jallan says Iʼll be in for a more thorough medical on