CHAPTER 27
Jullien cursed in frustration.
Thraix turned in his chair to look at him as they flew dark through League-controlled space. "Problem?"
"No ... yes. Not our problem. Someone else's. But something I can't seem to let go of."
By the expression on Thraix's face, he could tell the Trisani was using his powers to read his thoughts. Irritating, but he was getting used to it. He just wished Thraix was more like Trajen and would respect his privacy and leave his mind alone.
"Don't take it personally, Andarion. They didn't listen to your brother, either. Nykyrian couldn't get a stay of execution, any more than you could. So it's not just you the Garvons are being assholes with."
"Doesn't make me feel better. Damn shame, no matter how you look at it." Jullien rubbed at his chin. "At least tell me Dagan deserves to die."
"Not really. Definitely not for this. He didn't even do it. Caillen's taking the death sentence for his sister. But you knew that without anyone saying it. It's why this has been eating at you."
Jullien looked away as Thraix said a truth he didn't want to hear spoken out loud. Yeah, he'd known it. Caillen was always taking the rap for his sister Kasen. He always had. "No good deed goes unpunished. Damn."
"Do you really want to help him?"
"Bad blood between us aside? Yeah, I do." For whatever reason, he hated to see anyone unjustly punished.
It was his worst genetic defect.
"Then make sure the DNA for Caillen is run through the Exeter database before his execution. Don't let them backlog it, like they normally do capital cases."
Jullien scowled. "Why?"
"Trust me. Use your newfangled powers, and run it through their system today ... if you want to save his life."
Jullien had no idea what difference that would make, since they only ran the samples to see if the convicted felon's DNA matched any other unsolved crimes on file. It was one of the reasons why they weren't in any hurry to run them before execution. Since the felon was about to be out of circulation, what difference did it make if he or she had committed other crimes? They wouldn't be committing any future ones. At least that was their philosophy.
But ... who was he to argue with Thraix?
Screw it, he'd do it. At least this way, if Caillen was guilty of something else, he'd die for a crime he'd actually committed and not one his sister had dragged him into.
Small consolation, that. Still, better than nothing, he supposed.
His link went off. Jullien pulled it out to see Ushara's image smiling at him. His heart and mood instantly lightened. How weird that it took so little to brighten his day. Worse? Just the thought of hearing the sound of her voice made him hard and aching, especially since it brought to mind an image of her wearing that lacy confection she'd surprised him with on their anniversary.
Smiling at the cruel dichotomy while hoping Thraix was completely out of his head right now, he answered it. "Hey, beautiful."
"Where are you?"
He checked his coordinates. "Still in the Solaras System for a few more. Why? You need me to head back?"
"No. The League is locking down the Garvon Sector hard. I wanted to make sure you weren't near it."
"We're headed to Oksana to rendezvous with Jupiter."
"Good. Opposite direction works very well for me. Although, knowing you, you could still find utter disaster, with both hands tied behind your back and blindfolded."
He laughed. "So what's going on over there that I need to avoid?"
"Oh, you know. You're the Tadar of Politics, and usually understand these nuances better than the rest of us. Anyway, the Summit's about to meet, so the Caronese Resistance is revving into high gear for their attacks while their Grand Counsel's away. The Sentella's backing them, as they always do. The Qills are trying to start a war with the Trimutians, and for some reason I can't learn, they've got Septurnum help--see if you can find out from Jory who that idiot is. If that's not enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your grandmother's running loose in the streets, doing who knows what. I have a hangnail, and Vas drank the last of my juice this morning and didn't tell me. He stayed late at school and forgot to remind me, so I thought he'd been kidnapped again. Then he left his backpack in his locker without thinking, so we had to find his teacher to let us back into school after hours to get it. World is coming to an end. I'm telling you. See what you miss when you leave? Oh, and the toilet seat was left up again, and I fell in, in the middle of the night! And you're right, you didn't do it. I raised a thoughtless beast of a son."
He laughed. "Well, I'll kill Vas as soon as I get home, and hide his body. For now, I'll give him a stern lecturing when I hang up from you. In the meantime, I can do absolutely nothing about anything else. I'm feeling grotesquely worthless as a husband and Androkyn."
Laughing at him, she shook her head. "I miss you so much."
"Miss you, too. But I am willing to take the bathroom heat for Vas if it'll spare him your wrath until I get back."
She gave him an adorable grin. "I have to say, you do endure my wrath with much more grace than he does."
"Only because I'm used to being yelled at."
Gasping, she touched her heart. "Now, that hurts."
"I didn't mean for it to," he said quickly. "Just stating a fact, and I wasn't implicating you. You're not the one who insults or beats me. You merely speak about certain subjects with great passion. That doesn't bother me at all."
Ushara winced at his teasing. She knew he was making light of something that, while it didn't bother him, made her ache in sympathetic pain. She'd often wondered how he managed to stay so calm whenever others began shouting at him.
Now she knew.
Trajen had shown it to her. But she hadn't really made that connection before. This time, she did. Shouting and insults were all he'd known for communication growing up. All his family and teachers had ever given him. They yelled and he mostly stayed silent while they did so. Because to speak only escalated their tempers and made it worse.
In that moment, she would give anything to hold him.
Jullien frowned at her over the link. "What's that noise?"
She smiled at the discordant sound. "Your legacy."
"Pardon?"
"After hearing you play so well so often, it seems your son has redeveloped his interest in music. He's out there practicing ... thanks," she said sarcastically.
He screwed his handsome face up into one of sympathetic pain. "God, I am so sorry."
"You should be." She winked at him, then laughed. "Actually, it warms my heart to have him diligently practice every night. I'm glad to see the old keyboard put to use again, and that he sees you as a role model."
Jullien groaned. "Fine, go on and be cruel. Just pile the guilt on. Make it worse."
"Worse?"
"Um, yeah. I'd much rather our child pick a role model I'd like for him to emulate. God help us both if he ever behaves like me. I can think of no worse curse."
She rolled her eyes again. "I can think of no greater blessing. I would love to have a son who acts just like his paka."
Making a noise of protest, he appeared horrified by her suggestion. "Don't say shit like that, Shara! The gods might take you up on it."
"Jules?"
He paused at Unira's soft voice. "Yes, Matarra?"
"We need to go dark. Immediately."
Ushara's face paled. "Stay safe. Love you."
"Itu, munatara."
Ushara cut the transmission so fast, Jullien wasn't sure she heard him. But then that was what he adored most about her. He didn't have to say it.
She knew.
His safety was more important to her than words. Still, the sight of that blank screen made him ache. He hated to be apart from her.
Another thing he despised his family for as he shut down everything on the ship with his thoughts.
Thraix gave him an approving nod. "You're getting scary with that."
"Yeah, I don't even feel it anymore. It's like breathing to me now."
"That's good. It's what you want. The ship to become part of you. Indistinguishable."
It was becoming that way. Fast. As were a lot of other objects around him. He wasn't sure at times how Thraix and Trajen remained sane with their powers. The universe held a whole new scary level when viewed through Trisani eyes.
Such as now ...
Jullien frowned as he heard the approach on their port side. "Three League ships are moving in."
Unira started to reach for the sensors, then stopped as she remembered that Jullien had cut all power except basic life support. "Can they sense us?"
Jullien shook his head. "They're not probing." He listened to their communications and engines. "They're not slowing." Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and did what they'd come here to do.
Used his powers to scan through their secured onboard systems for classified information that not even his best abilities could access from outside their lines. As good as he was at filching League info, there were some items not even Syn Wade could access.
No one was that good by conventional means.
But with these new psychic powers, there was nothing Jullien couldn't access, because he no longer had to do it through an I/O method. His thoughts connected seamlessly to the binary so that it couldn't detect that he was an outside party. The computer thought he was merely another onboard component, and it accepted him as such.
No questions asked.
By the time the ships moved out of range, Jullien had a headache from it.
"Well?" Thraix asked.
Jullien rubbed at his temple. "Nothing on Eriadne. Bitch is more ghost than I am. Varan, however, is shacked up with one of his other cousins. Since he's a Morlatte assassin, he's registered with The League. Go, moron. I have his address." He started the engines for the ship and set their course. "That being said, it got me thinking."
Thraix snorted. "Glad something did, Captain."
Jullien chose to ignore his sarcasm. "Nyk's adoptive brother had a base on Oksana, and back when all that shit broke with WAR's rebellion on Andaria, Aksel had a full dossier on all of us."
Unira scowled. "Why?"
"Aksel hated Nyk from the moment his father adopted him. To him, it was the worst insult Huwin could give him and his brother. You're not good enough sons to be my legacy for The League and to carry on my Quiakides name. I had to go adopt a male of another species and make him an assassin instead of my two natural sons."
"Ouch," Thraix whispered.
"Exactly. Anyway, because of that hatred, Aksel took the contract on Nyk's life the minute President Zamir made it live. And with that madness, Aksel dredged up everything on my brother's past. More than that, Aksel had approached me about helping him to set up Nyk before anyone else knew Nyk was my brother. No one had figured that out yet. No one. Yet somehow, Aksel had put it together. He knew all kinds of dirt on my family that no one else had."
Jullien pointed to the nav screen, where he'd laid their course in for Oksana. "I'm thinking we should get to that base and see if anything remains of it.... If we can find any of those old files intact."
"That's a long shot."
"True," Unira agreed. "But one definitely worth taking."
*
Jullien landed them not far from where Aksel's old Morlatte base was now nothing more than a shambled, hollowed-out wreck of the high-tech assassin's lair it'd once been. Five years of neglect, plus the bombing run his brother had laid down on it, had left its scars on the place. The harsh desert landscape had virtually reclaimed it.
Thraix manifested his fake, holographic people to watch over their ship while they disembarked to check things out.
Jullien had learned that those mental projections, combined with his lifelike mechas, were what had populated the outpost where Thraix lived. The surly Sparda Trisani was the only actual sentient creature on that rock. The rest had been his fabrications. Either androids he created in his lab, or those holograms he projected with his powers.
Impressive and terrifying.
Just like Thraix himself.
As they approached the run-down remains, Unira let out a slow whistle at the annihilation that spoke of extreme violence and fury. "What happened? The League?"
"No. My brother. The mother of his daughter, Driana, was murdered here, and his wife was held as hostage. Aksel wanted Nyk to come for a visit." Jullien shook his head at the burned-out walls that had been obviously bombed. "Needless to say, Nyk was a bit perturbed when he arrived. This is a prime example of be careful what you wish for."
Thraix snorted as they picked their way through the debris to enter the rusted-out remains. Cast against the harsh desert landscape, the building looked like some giant skeletal beast.
As Jullien started for the rickety stairs, he froze the instant he picked up the subtle sound of someone else near them.
Before he could warn the others, he heard the click of a blaster being switched from kill to stun.
"Don't."
He held his hands up slowly. "We mean you no harm."
"Then why are you here?"
Jullien hesitated at the odd question. Before he could answer, Thraix used his powers to disarm his attacker and pin him to the rusted wall. As his friend went to snap the man's neck, Jullien stopped him. "Wait!"
"For what? A fucking invitation?"
No, there was a strange prickling he didn't understand until he faced the man.
Jullien's breath caught as he instantly recognized the ragged dreg there. Though he was in bad need of food, a bath, shave, and clothes that fit and weren't worn out, this was his once-proud cousin.
Bastien Cabarro.
Son of a bitch.
I thought you were dead. Those words were almost out of his mouth before he could stop them. Luckily, he bit them back before he betrayed himself.
Sympathy for Bastien poured over him. What the minsid hell? How sorry was their family that they could cut their children loose to suffer and die so easily?
"Set him down."
Growling low in his throat, Thraix obeyed. "A living enemy makes for a dead you."
Jullien gave him an amused stare. "I see you've been reading the Book of Harmony again."
"Fuck you, Andarion," he snarled under his breath.
"And another lovely quote from your peaceful scripture."
Bastien scowled at them before he glanced to Unira. "Who are you people?"
"We're just passing through." Jullien shrugged his survival pack off his back. It contained medical supplies, water, and dehydrated emergency food rations. He held it out to Bastien. "Let us look for what we came after--has nothing to do with you--then you can grab a shower on our ship. I'll leave you with some clothes, food, and water."
Bastien raked him with a suspicious glare. "Why?"
"Because you look like you could use it."
Bastien, who bore enough of a resemblance to Jullien's father that it made him want to punch him, took the pack with a grimace. "Do I know you?"
"No," Jullien answered honestly. Six years younger than him, Bastien had never really hung around much the few times their families had forced them together. Bas would head to a corner with his handheld in an attempt to avoid his obnoxious siblings while Jullien would do the same.
For the same reasons.
Bas's human family had been its own special kind of hell, as evidenced by the man's current shitty condition.
Thraix glanced to Jullien before he spoke to him in his head. Who is this asshole, and what's he to you? Don't waste my time by saying "nothing" or I'll smack you. I know better.
Jullien let out a tired sigh. He's my cousin, Bastien Cabarro.
Thraix arched a disdainful brow at the name. "You're that Kirovarian prince who slaughtered his whole family?"
Fury darkened Bastien's eyes. Slamming the pack down, he started for Thraix only to have Thraix throw him against the wall again with h
is powers.
Aghast, Thraix glared at Jullien. "You would really spare a snake this treacherous?"
"I didn't do it!"
Thraix scoffed. "That's what they all say."
Jullien exchanged a glance with Unira, who was remaining oddly stoic and silent. "I believe him. They never had any evidence against him, other than the word of his own uncle, who now sits on the throne he inherited after he testified against Bastien."
Thraix laughed bitterly. "Oh, okay, 'cause the younger son never murders the older one for a throne."
That bitter accusation, which had been leveled against him more times than he could count, ignited Jullien's own rage, and if anyone else had said it, they'd be searching the ground for their teeth. "Yeah, and sometimes the second son just makes a ready-made patsy for others to pin their own crimes on. Because everyone but that second son is smart enough to figure out that when the entire family dies, he's going to be blamed for it. Funny, he's creative and ambitious enough to remove the direct obstacles to his succession, yet doesn't ever consider that in the obvious chain of suspicion, he's suspect number one and that either jail or death is a much more permanent hurdle against his ruling. Yeah, right.... That thought never occurs to him, until it's too late. Now, put him down."
Bastien hit the ground with a solid thud and a loud groan.
"Really?" Jullien said in the same tone an irate parent would use with a petulant toddler.
Thraix smirked. "You didn't specify gentle as a condition of his release."
Sighing irritably, Jullien growled in the back of his throat while Bastien pushed himself to his feet. He struggled for patience, knowing it wasn't worth a fight against one of his few friends.
Irritated, he tried to ignore Thraix's pissy mood. "Aksel's office was on the second floor. What we need, if it's still intact, should be up there." He led them away from Bastien.
As they left the room, Bastien called out to Jullien. "Paktu, mi kyzi."
"Estra, mi pleti." Jullien silently cursed himself as soon as that automatic response was out of his mouth, and he realized what he'd done.
How slick Bastien had been.
Dammit. He was the one who'd taught Andarion to him when they were boys. Not much of it. Just a few key phrases.
Thank you, cousin and anytime, my blood being among them.
Holding the pack to his chest, Bastien approached him as Jullien turned slowly around to face him again.
His breathing ragged, Bastien swallowed hard. "Tell me I'm wrong. But it's you, Julie, isn't it?"