His teammate shook his head and fired into the enemy ranks. “No, she was too busy with One R&D stuff to take extra classes.”

  “You asked her?”

  “I wanted her permission to trade a little training time for the Teloran language.”

  “And she gave it?”

  “She said one of us needed to know.”

  “Huh. She never mentioned it to me.”

  “You were in the pods when the opportunity came up.”

  Jimmy gave a snort of laughter. “You mean when you made the bet you could learn it faster?”

  Lars snapped off three more shots and yanked a grenade from his harness, and the Hooligans joined in. The nMU shielding the Teloran’s armor sparked under the impact of a multitude of rounds. The sound of it gradually gave way to the metallic spang of solid rounds striking armor.

  Another enemy round thudded into the Morgana and she let loose a withering round of new curses. At least, Ka thought they were curses. They certainly didn’t sound friendly.

  She looked at Todd. “I think the Morgana knows more about the Telorans than she’s let on.”

  “Ya think?” Gary added. “What the fuck gives you that idea?”

  “Cursing in a foreign tongue so eloquently is a hint,” she retorted dryly.

  The Telorans didn’t simply stand and wait for their armor to be breached but they refused to move from their position in front of the doorway. They stood four ranks deep and blocked the corridor so they could only be taken on eight at a time. The Hooligans and Stephanie’s team had made a dent but not fast enough.

  The Morgana pulled more energy and released a storm of sharp-edged discs into them. The cats roared and bounded past her before soldiers could fill the gap. Their claws flashed and their growls seemed to make the air itself shudder and ripple air. The Telorans were torn between trying to advance and avoiding the two big felines wreaking havoc in their ranks.

  “Turds of Hrageth!” Vishlog cursed seconds later and Lars followed the Dreth’s alarmed gaze.

  Darkness formed another oil slick at the ceiling. It stretched across the intersection and vanished out of sight down either end of the corridor. Before the team leader could respond, a piercing whistle almost shattered the comms.

  “Motherfuck!” Ka swore. “Didja have to?”

  The two cats looked up and her answer came in a second, more urgent shriek. After one last swipe at the closest Telorans, the two cats raced back. Lars stretched his hand tentatively to touch the Morgana, but negative energy snapped toward him and he pulled it away.

  “Wait!” he shouted. “Please, wait! The cats—”

  The two animals in question streaked around the corner and their paws scrabbled to find traction on a floor slick with blood. Fortunately, it was also littered with Teloran corpses and they found the purchase they needed and boosted off broken torsos and limbs so they could make the turn.

  They came to a flurried halt in front of Vishlog and he gave a series of quick chirps while his hands flashed to direct them to cover. The Morgana let the oil slick fall and both teams waited for the armor to give way before they opened fire.

  It was a slaughter, even before she riddled the Telorans left standing with a swarm of shards.

  "I’ll get the hatch.” Johnny started forward but Ka and Piet slid past him.

  “That’s our job.”

  Before any of them could reach it, the barrier exploded out of its frame and careened into the room beyond and the wall at the far end, and the Morgana surged forward. The three of them stumbled aside to let her past, and Lars hurried to keep up with her. Vishlog and the cats ran alongside.

  Still stunned, Johnny and the Hooligans followed. The sight of her destroying consoles with bolts of flickering darkness rendered them momentarily speechless. Lars turned toward the others.

  “Don’t you ladies have a job to do?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Magic snapped from the back of the bridge and the Morgana swore. She thrust a hand out at shoulder height and a shield of black interposed itself between her and the incoming lightning.

  “Go!” Lars yelled, and Todd looked at Ka.

  “You’re up, Corporal. Piet.”

  “Oh, sure, put me in the same class as her,” the explosives expert grumbled.

  “Quit your bitching and make sure this ship won’t ever fly again. Angus, Henry, Dru! Cover them.”

  As the Hooligans scrambled to do what he ordered, he risked a glance toward Stephanie, his eyes dark with worry. The girl he loved had almost totally disappeared. It was like she’d been subsumed by someone—or something.

  A little fearful, he wondered if he’d ever get her back.

  He also wondered if the Morgana was always there and if she ever sat somewhere inside his girl and watched their private moments. The thought sent shivers over his skin. Oh, God, I hope not.

  Jimmy crashed into him in a side tackle and they rolled to end up slightly behind the remains of a console. Magic ripped through the space he’d occupied and he took a shaky breath.

  “Thanks, Jimmy.”

  “Glad to have you back with us, sir.”

  Todd decided he deserved that. He’d let himself be distracted and had almost died. He didn’t blame the man for being pissed. No doubt he’d hear about it from the rest of the team as well.

  “How are they going?”

  “Almost…there, boss.” Ka sounded like she was fighting a battle all her own. “Give…us…a couple more minutes.”

  “You got it,” he told her and moved closer so he could cover her better. He located Piet, Gary, and Reggie, who moved cautiously around the edge of the command center, and hoped the three of them would be enough.

  “Don’t forget to create us an exit,” he said on the comms.

  “Gotcha, boss.” Piet’s response was a short affirmative, but Reggie had more to say.

  “Don’t get your ass shot off in the meantime.”

  He shook his head. He really wouldn’t be able to live that down.

  Whatever. We’ve gotta live through this first.

  He settled into a pattern of finding a target and firing before he found another and continued the routine. Jimmy, Angus, and Henry worked with him and the four of them dealt with what was left of the bridge crew after the Morgana’s little temper tantrum.

  She eliminated two of the mages and hauled the third up against the rear wall.

  “Why do you fight me, Captain?” she demanded. “Why don’t you lay down your arms?”

  The final statement had a twist of sweetness to it that even Todd found mildly compelling. The Teloran captain was made of sterner stuff, however.

  “Because we don’t succumb to evil, no matter how ancient it is,” he all but snarled. “You will not be allowed to hinder Teloran survival. I do not care who you used to be.”

  “Evil?” the Morgana retorted. “Me?”

  “What else could you be? I don’t know where you came from but I will send you back there. I will not allow evil to stand before me and live.”

  “Brave words for someone serving the greatest evil that ever lived,” she replied and anger vibrated through her words.

  “In the times from which you originate, there was greater evil. You should know. You are an Ancient Evil from that time.”

  The Morgana laughed. “Me? I fought evil—and for my beliefs, they sought to bury me under a mountain!”

  Magic crackled and flickered between them but neither of them broke through the defenses of the other.

  “No!” the captain exclaimed. “No… That’s impossible.”

  She swept her hands in and thrust them toward him. Magic boiled from the deck, the ceiling, and even the walls to join the solid wall of black she drove toward him.

  “No!” He raised a hand and, when his magic shattered, tried to shield his face with an upflung arm. “It can’t be.”

  He died when the wall pounded into him and burrowed beneath his skin to explode and hurl pieces of his black-cloaked form in multiple directions. He died in silence without even the time to scream.

  “Apparently,” the Morgana replied, “it can.”

  “Got it!” Ka’s victorious shout overrode her.

  Todd glanced at his second and saw the reason for the strain he’d heard before. She hadn’t bothered to hack the system. She’d simply removed the entire data storage unit.

  “It was quicker this way,” she told him when she noticed the disbelief on his face.

  Before he could protest, she unzipped her suit and stuffed the unit inside it.

  “There,” she said and sounded far too satisfied. “Now, they have to retrieve my body.”

  “That wasn’t in the plan—”

  Ka gave him a double-handed finger-flip accompanied by a thrust of her hips. “Read it and weep, boss-man baby. It’s the way it’s gonna be.”

  She raised her voice and looked at Piet. “Have you made me my exit already?”

  “Work, work, work,” the man grumbled and scowled at her. “Tell me when to set it off.”

  “What,” the Morgana’s voice demanded coldly, “do you think you’re doing?”

  “Well, ma’am,” Reggie answered and swaggered forward to stand in front of her. “We’re getting set to ignite some explosive attached to a half-dozen Meligornian grenades, right next to a power line jam-packed with nMU so we can make ourselves an exit and blow this motherfucker to Kingdom come. Why? Do you have something to say about it?”

  He tapped her on the chest and flicked her faceplate when she glanced down.

  Lars had never seen the Morgana speechless before. Nor had he ever seen the blood drain from her face.

  “You what?” she managed in what might have been a whispered scream.

  “You heard,” Reggie told her and smirked. “We’re gonna blow this motherfucker to Kingdom come and maybe back again.”

  “Do you have any idea how much energy that’ll release?”

  “Enough to push us all the way to the Knight?”

  She glanced at the forward viewscreen and scowled when she found it blank. With a muttered imprecation, she looked at Todd.

  “Tell them to turn it off,” she ordered, and he shook his head.

  Again, Reggie interrupted. “No can do, pretty lady. This shit is set to blow, which reminds me.” He looked at his sergeant. “We really gotta get ready to go, boss. We have about a minute before the second charge goes and we don’t want to be inside when that happens.”

  “You don’t know the half of it!” the Morgana shrieked and connected to the four ships on the comms.

  “Emil, I need everyone as close to the other side of the solar system as they can get inside the next five minutes.”

  “What do you—”

  “Now, Emil.” The compulsion in her tone rolled through everyone in earshot and she received sharp acknowledgments as the ships showed increasing distances in their HUDs.

  The team and the Hooligans weren’t immune either. They began to move to the far end of the command center at a run. Even Lars and Vishlog didn’t hesitate and both tried to grab the Morgana as they bolted past.

  She gave a low chuckle and walked to stand beside them. “Emil, we’re coming home. The passenger lounge in Hangar Bay One.”

  “Hangar Bay One’s blown to hell,” he protested and her face darkened. “Go for Three,” Emil told her.

  “Done.”

  Darkness swirled around them and Lars felt momentarily pulled apart as he and everyone else was yanked out of the Teloran command center and flung into the passenger lounge of Hangar Three.

  “Fire on the Teloran!” Emil’s order cut through the comms as the world solidified around them. “Give it everything you have and make a run to the edge.”

  “Aye, captain,” and “Yes, Knight,” answered him as he turned to meet Stephanie’s dazed look. “What?”

  “It… She’s gonna blow,” the girl replied. “Oh, crap.”

  She’d felt the first nibble of gMU and knew the Teloran ship wasn’t the only thing that would explode. Frantically, she began to cycle nMU out of her system as fast as she could eject it, not concerned about where it went.

  As she did so, the world wavered.

  “No,” she muttered. “No, no, no, not yet.”

  It was hard, but she managed to keep the gates to her internal tanks closed long enough to push out the negative energy and even then, she was terrified she’d missed some. In an effort to make sure, she tried to create an nMU shield without drawing on any nMU around her.

  The magic refused her call. It was like tapping an empty drum. Her knees folded and she opened the gates to her internal tanks to draw gMU in as fast as she could.

  The effort left her breathless and dizzy but her pulse steadied, and she slowly became aware of an arm draped around her shoulders and her arm pulled around someone else’s shoulder.

  “Steph?” Lars’s voice intruded. “Come on, Steph. Talk to me.”

  “You’re an idiot and in need of a bath?”

  He laughed with relief. “Go on, Todd. Finish your mission. I’ll make sure she gets some rest.”

  “Aye.” Todd’s reply came in a voice rough with emotion and fatigue.

  Stephanie thought she heard regret but the moment passed. She wanted to say goodbye, to reassure Todd she was okay and to reassure herself that she was okay, too, but she couldn’t. She struggled to keep her eyes open, and only Lars’s support kept her on her feet.

  “He’ll be here when you wake,” he promised and helped her to the door.

  He swung her into his arms when she went limp and almost regretted not making Todd stay. The man had a job to do, though, and neither of them would thank him for causing a delay.

  “If anyone deserved a break,” he muttered and enlisted Vishlog and Johnny to help him get Steph out of her armor and slide her into the spare bed in Elizabeth’s quarters.

  Johnny wrinkled his nose. “She won’t thank you when she wakes up,” he said.

  The team leader shrugged. “She’ll manage,” he answered. “She always does.”

  “Todd should be here.”

  There was no answer to that, so they left her and took the cats with them. It was one thing for the big brutes to wreck her room, but neither of them wanted to see the animals as rugs if they tried the same thing in Elizabeth’s quarters.

  Stephanie slept, the Morgana satisfied with their victory and willing to wait for the Navy to unlock the data she needed to end the threat she’d fought for such a very long time.

  “I tell you, there’s something going on here that we can’t see,” Ka protested. “Boss, I know she’s your girlfriend, but I’m worried.”

  Todd gave an exasperated sigh. “Guys, come on. You know Steph.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t know this Morgana chick,” Reggie replied. “Seriously, boss, no one cusses like that in any language unless they’re a native speaker, and last time I looked, that wasn’t Steph.”

  “And you all heard what Johnny said. She hasn’t had time to dig into any Teloran classes, so how does she know it?”

  He shrugged. “How does she know anything when she’s the Morgana?”

  “And that’s another thing, boss. This Morgana persona. We have no idea who or what she is,” Gary stated. “It’s like Steph’s another person when she’s there.”

  “Or like Steph’s been taken over by another person,” Ka added. “It’s freaky to watch.”

  “And that stuff she knew,” Angus piped up. “All that stuff about the Ancients and fighting some great evil. That captain knew exactly what she was talking about.”

  “Yeah, he did. The way he reacted when she said she was the Ancient they’d buried under a mountain, he knew exactly who she meant and who she was.”

  “And she didn’t deny it,” Ka added. She gave Todd a straight look. “Boss, we don’t know who the Morgana is, but she seems to know the enemy very well—and they sure as shit know her.”

  “So, are you asking me if I think the Morgana is with the Telorans?” he asked.

  They all nodded.

  “As in with the enemy,” he reiterated, and they nodded again. “I’m not sure I like where you’re going with this.”

  Ka gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder. “Believe me, boss, neither do we.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “So, what will we do about it?” Ka was the first to break the silence that followed.

  Todd sank back against the wall and gestured for her to continue. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to have an opinion, here,” he told them. “She’s my girlfriend and that makes me more than a little biased. I know her.”

  “We’re not talking about Stephanie, Todd. We’re talking the Morgana—and from what we’ve seen, she’s one of them.”

  “A Teloran?” Gary sounded a little doubtful.

  “Yeah, one of them,” she replied.

  “Are you sure?” Angus challenged, “because she looks like an ally to me. What she did? Coming after us? Making sure we got back to the Knight in one piece and with the data intact?” He frowned at her. “The data is intact, isn’t it? The magic didn’t break it, did it?”

  Ka shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I handed it to that Commander Sartre we’re all so fond of.”

  “Speak for yourself,” her teammate muttered when he recalled what had happened after they’d tried to play a practical joke on the Knight’s Marines.

  Gary caught his expression and also clearly remembered the incident. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say fond so much as well-acquainted with.”

  “Well-acquainted, eh?” She waggled her eyebrows. “How well-acquainted?”

  “That’s not the point,” Darren said. He’d been quiet for most of the mission and for the discussion that followed. “The point is we have a fucking Teloran in our midst. Hell, she even decides where we fight. How much do we want to trust her?”

  Todd stared at him in shock, and the man gave him an apologetic smile.

  “Sorry, boss. I’m playing the devil’s advocate and getting these shit-for-brains asshats back on track. It’s like herding cats.”

  He gave him a small smile. “Don’t sweat it, Private. I get you.”