[LEGACY VERSION] The Enemy of Time (Book 2 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 3 - Jonas

Dark widened into a lighter haze above him--Jonas opened his eyes. He squinted in the cold blue of overhead lights and groaned at the dull aches in his body. He tried to sit up.

"No, I don't think you should move yet."

He jumped, his heart racing into panic at the sound of that voice. He didn't know why until he searched the sterile room and found the craggy face of Admiral Kosef.

"Sir," he managed. He tried to sit up again. "Sir, I--"

Kosef pressed him firmly back down. "Lay down, that's an order." He snorted. "Not that I can order you, and not that you have to obey me. But in this--please. For your own sake, and mine. The doctor will have my head if she knows I'm terrorizing you."

Jonas shook his head, and thought to protest that no, the admiral was not terrorizing him, the admiral had every right to do as he pleased. But he looked around again--this was definitely a medical cubicle, the walls tight and the air astringent. He felt the soft vibration of the ship's engines, but it wasn't his own ship's rhythm. Panic rose again.

"Where--sir, what happened--"

"Easy. You're safe. You were injured, but you're healing well."

"What ship?" Jonas asked.

"The Robber Prince," Kosef said, then muttered, "Nothing in half measures for him."

Jonas came more fully awake. Nothing in half measures for whom? And why did that name sound familiar? It didn't sound like an Armada ship, but there were tens of thousands of ships in the Armada. The support ships often had less standard names. But the head of the Miravec Justice Armada wouldn't be travelling in a support ship.

"Sir--how did I come here? Why are you--" He clamped down on the question, and heat rushed to his face. A junior captain did not ask an admiral what the admiral was doing, ever.

Kosef sagged into a chair beside the medical bed. "Jonadi--"

From his toes to the nape of his neck, Jonas' hair stood on end. What had Kosef called him? Had he heard it right?

Kosef watched him. Then he pulled something from the pocket of his uniform, which Jonas finally noticed was plain black, without rank or markings. Kosef held a flat disk over Jonas' face, and Jonas looked up. A small mirror. He watched the color drain from the face within it, his face. Pale, distinctively structured, with vivid blue eyes and uncombed white-blonde hair.

His eyes darted back to Kosef.

Kosef took back the mirror and returned to his seat, his movements unhurried.

Jonas tried to swallow.

"How much do you remember?" Kosef asked.

How much of anything should he say? He didn't remember decrypting to his natural DNA, but he must have. Memories shunted back into his awareness. A disjointed run through a station at Andavar. Holding a--God, his halo--to the throat of one of the doctors on his ship and demanding to be decrypted. That had come before the station. And then after, in his cabin aboard his ship, shackled hand and foot. He'd watched his wife raise the pistol-watched Lt. Lovich force her to raise the pistol-and fire at him.

He strained to see his chest. The edges of skintape bandages peaked from the neck of the blue medical knits.

Jonas fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Then Admiral Zivali had brought him here. Fixed him up, probably made Tal think he was dead, oh God. Zivali would wring out his secrets, if she hadn't done so already with drugs.

But Admiral Kosef wasn't with Admiral Zivali, was he? She'd declared him a traitor.

Kosef still watched him, attentive and patient as Jonas pieced together as much as he could.

"You know who I am?" Jonas asked.

"Yes. Jonadi Chevani. And no, I have no ill-intent toward you, if that is your next question. We are on Kalec's ship."

Jonas cursed. The Robber Prince. That was where he'd heard that name before--the flagship of the notorious Resistance leader Kalec Chevani. He hadn't seen his uncle in years, not since Kalec had taken him as a teenager to be raised by a Miravec family. He'd hoped to never see his uncle again.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted.

Kosef barked a humorless laugh. "Conscripted, I dare say. Fled for my life. As I believe you did." His dark eyes were keen and sharp on Jonas. "I don't know how you got here. I wasn't aware that anyone had perfected teleportation technology, not enough to send anything bigger than a handful of molecules."

What? Jonas tried to parse that last sentence.

Kosef leaned forward, interlocking his hands. "Look, I get that you're not going to trust me. Hell, there isn't a soul on this ship--or likely anywhere--that trusts me. I'm here because I made a promise to a friend that I would protect him, and that includes protecting you."

"What friend?" It was a bold question, but if Kosef knew his secret, Jonas had little to lose.

Kosef shook his head. "Can't tell you that."

"Am I a prisoner?"

"Depends on which side you're on. Jonas Krayle, yes?"

Jonas hesitated, then gave a nod. He'd decrypted, so Kosef shouldn't know his Miravec identity. But if this was Kalec's ship, Kalec would know Jonas had been adopted by General and Captain Krayle. The knowledge was a point in Kosef's favor, unless Zivali had managed to co-opt him into interrogating Jonas.

His head began to throb.

"You're married--life-bonded, as I recall--to the daughter of Admiral Zivali. Dalina, is it?"

"Talina," Jonas said.

"Yes. What I want to know is, did they send you here decrypted like you are so we would be more apt to trust you? Are you here to bring us down?" His eyes narrowed. "Because my promise to my friend only includes keeping you alive. It does not keep me from brigging you as an enemy agent."

Jonas tried to think through this, but closed his eyes. The surge of adrenaline that had fueled him until now was draining, and his mind was starting to fog again.

"I'm not with Zivali," he said.

"Fine. Do you have any proof--"

Kosef knew who he really was, that was damning enough. Everything about him was damning now, right down to the DNA screaming from his cells: Kynaston! Chevani! Kynaston!

"I sent the message to Hale. Warned them. About you."

Kosef was silent.

Jonas opened his eyes wider and tried to refocus. "Told them to escape. It wasn't Landon on Hale. You know that?"

Kosef hissed. His shoulders tensed and moved like he was going to stand, but he didn't. His voice was a rasped hush. "Do you know where Landon is? Is he still alive?"

"Wouldn't tell you," Jonas slurred. Then added, "But no, I don't know." He closed his eyes again as sleep gathered. Kosef mercifully asked no more.

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