Lost Star, Hawke, Morgan [novel24 .TXT] 📗

leaned against the side of the oval doorway. “Diagnostics says that it is several years old and very deeply embedded.”

What the hell could the Agency possibly have running in his head? He tried to think, but it was getting increasingly hard to hold his thoughts together. He was just too damned tired. His eyes drifted closed. He jerked them back open. This was no time to fall asleep! But he really, really wanted to.

Seht scowled at his uncle. “There has to be something we can do.”

Syrhus shook his head. “He must be returned.”

Seht’s eyes widened and panic began to shimmer under his thoughts. “No…”

“Yes.” Syrhus’s brows lowered, and his gaze narrowed on Seht. “Until the Imperial Intelligence removes the transmitter and the program, your stray is too much of a danger to keep.”

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“He’s mine.” Seht’s eyes drifted closed, then opened. He took a deep breath and spoke as firmly, but his body was already relaxing into a sprawl. “Properly registered.

My pet. My…Aubrey.”

Syrhus nodded. “Fear not. In thirty days your stray will be safe enough to collect.”

He leaned in and reached past Seht to lift Aubrey’s head.

Aubrey took a slow breath and spoke carefully. “Collect?”

Syrhus’s brows rose. “You’re still awake?” He smiled, showing his long teeth. “We have an entire division, one might say, devoted to the recovery of lost…pets.”

Aubrey felt a strange buzz at the back of his neck, and a slight tug around his throat. Suddenly there was an…absence in his mind. Seht was gone. He couldn’t feel him among his thoughts. A cold wash of panic washed through him. “Seht?”

Seht stared back at him with wide, unfocused eyes. “Aubrey?”

Syrhus leaned back, holding the silver collar. He shoved it into his belt, then caught Seht under his arms and lifted him from the small alcove.

His blue eyes wide and moist, Seht moaned and struggled weakly, reaching back into the alcove. “Aubrey!”

Aubrey fought to raise his arm and reach for Seht, but it was just too damned hard. A whimper escaped his throat.

Syrhus smiled. “Don’t worry. The two of you won’t be separated for long.” With the moaning Seht cradled against his chest, the long white mane falling over his arm, Syrhus turned to stare directly into Aubrey’s eyes. “A rehkyt cannot hide among humans for very long. Not even one that is only half-turned. His eyes, his teeth, his very blood will give him away.” He strode away, taking Seht with him.

Pain swelled in Aubrey’s heart, and his eyes burned. He was being turned over to the Agency. His indenture was complete, so he’d be sent home. He’d be able to see his dad again. He should be thrilled, but all he could feel was the absence in his mind and his heart where Seht had been. He stared down the empty hallway until his eyes became impossibly hard to keep open.

* * * * *

Aubrey awoke to bright lights, loud voices, and a strange, burning hunger in his belly. “Seht?” His throat no longer hurt, but exhaustion dragged at him, rendering his voice to barely a whisper.

Someone patted his shoulder and spoke in a soft, deep voice. “Relax, you’re going to be all right, son. You’re on the Agency sweeper, Machiavellian. You’re safe now.”

Aubrey looked up and saw beeping and flashing equipment everywhere. He was in some kind of hospital bay.

A man with a chiseled face smiled down at him. He wore a plain black uniform, and his pitch-black hair was pulled back into a severe braid. He was quite obviously an 92

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Imperial Intelligence agent. “You’re healing very quickly. We’ve already downloaded the information and lifted the block on your memories. A few good meals and some thorough rest will have you back to…eh…” His smile faded, then reappeared. “You’ll be up and around very soon.”

Aubrey tried to concentrate on what he’d been told, but he was so tired.

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Chapter Fifteen

Aubrey snapped awake in a very small room on a very small bunk. He sat up slowly, the blankets rolling down his chest. On the fold-down bunk across from him was a battered black duffel bag that he recognized. It was his dad’s.

Memories crashed down on him. Suddenly, his head was crammed full of things he hadn’t recalled in several years.

The hijacking programs in his mind were his own design, but he hadn’t used them to steal ships to joyride; he’d made them to help his retired marine father in his salvage operation.

His father was dead, killed by the Moribund Company when they’d hijacked his freighter.

He hadn’t been arrested by the Agency. Fueled by burning anger over his father’s death, he’d volunteered to go deep undercover specifically to find the Moribund Company. The sleeper program was a lucid memory program that recorded everything that had happened to him. He had become a living, breathing recording device that utilized his ability to crack codes to tap into ships and record every operation, program, and code used in, on, or around him.

His father was dead.

He rose from the bunk and walked over to the duffel bag. Atop it laid a neatly folded pair of pants, a black T-shirt, and undergarments. Standard-issue boots were tucked neatly under the cot. He carried the clothes into the small bathing room attached to his tiny cabin to take a shower.

His father was dead.

His heart ached with the knowledge, but the tears rolling down his cheeks were for another absence entirely.

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* * * * *

At the very end of the narrow, steel-walled hallway, the black uniformed yeoman knocked on the plain, unmarked door.

“Enter.”

The yeoman opened the door and bowed, ushering Aubrey into a darkly appointed and heavily shadowed ready room. The carpets were black, as were the chairs and the broad desk that commanded the center of the room.

The man behind the desk stood. He was painfully slender with sleek black hair pulled tightly back into a long, slender braid. His rich amber brown eyes burned with