“I didn't do anything I regret except not kill all of you,” his voice cracked across the room. “Her kind, if she was one of the Demons, they killed men, women and children who weren't a part of your war. Took no part in it, had no say in it.”

  “And yes, I hunted them down, as many as I could find, and I killed them. I made them suffer as much as I could for as long as I could and my only regret is that I couldn't make that suffering last much, much longer.” His voice was a cold as liquid nitrogen and Meredith fought the urge to shiver.

  “If she moves against me again, I'll gut her and leave her for you to clean up,” he warned softly. “And I'll enjoy it. So like I said,” he was suddenly less cold, “it's better that I go.”

  “Will there be anything else?” he asked, as if he hadn't just admitted to being exactly what Faulks thought he was.

  “No, that about covers it,” Meredith nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Welcome,” he nodded and then left the room. Once he was gone she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  God, what a mess.

  

  Faulks felt almost numb as she made her way down the passageway toward her quarters. It was either there or the cargo bay and she was tired of waiting around in the cargo area. She needed to change and she still had the gun she'd picked up on the station to square away.

  This day hadn't started too badly with the prospect of getting rid of Sean Galen and replacing him with someone she could bully a bit so long as she kept the Captain unaware. She didn't consider it bullying, really, just asserting her dominance.

  The dominance that had been a horribly ironic facade for the last three years as she realized who and what Sean Galen really was. He could have killed her anytime he chose without breaking a sweat, but instead he had simply ignored her as someone not worthy of thinking about. Someone who simply wasn't a threat to him.

  That realization hurt. And it was insulting.

  It had been bad enough when she had failed to protect her Captain. She should have been more aware of what was going on around them instead of concentrating on her delight in the trouble Meredith was having with Lincoln. She told herself that she wasn't a bad person to want Lincoln out of the way so she could have a chance at. . .at whatever she could get with Meredith Trenton. It wasn't wrong to want something like that, right?

  After all, if Lincoln couldn't handle Meredith being the ship's Captain then he shouldn't have signed on. That would have made Faulks' life so much easier. But no. Not only was Lincoln there, he was constantly undermining Faulks' position with the Captain. Just because he had taken advantage of her at a time when she was weak and alone he thought that somehow trumped her own connection to the Captain?

  Only today she had learned that her 'connection' with the Captain only existed in that fantasy world she had created for herself over the last several years. She had known when she had erected that little private fantasy world that it was exactly that, but she had also harbored the hope that it would one day become real.

  That hope had just been crushed under the foot of Meredith Trenton herself (she refused to acknowledge that Meredith used Lincoln Simmons' name). Faulks had felt her carefully constructed little world crumble beneath her at the Captain's flat declaration.

  For someone like Faulks, admitting that she was responsible for any of the problems she was having was pretty much impossible. She had done everything right. She'd been protective, patient, supportive, all the things that she felt she was supposed to be. None of it had worked. Lincoln Simmons occupied a place that she, Faulks, would never have and she hated him for it. For a few savage seconds she wished that their now dead captors had hit the man harder, crushed his skull. Meredith might have been devastated by his loss, but Faulks would have been there to support and comfort her. She ignored the fact that without Sean Galen and Tony Giannini she would be dead right alongside him, as would her Captain.

  Sanity rushed back to her after those few seconds, however, and she felt deflated. She would never wish or allow such a loss upon her Captain. If the marriage failed, through no fault of hers, then that was one thing. Allowing harm to come to her Captain's beloved, though? No, that was not her way. It was not something she could even contemplate for more than a few depressed seconds of anger and heartbreak.

  While she hated and despised the fact that Lincoln Simmons occupied Meredith Trenton's affections, she could not actually bring herself to hate the man directly. He was a good man and he had assisted her Captain through a terrible time. The fact that she wished it had been her to do that didn't make him a bad man. Or worthy of her hatred either.

  Her thinking came full circle and she was more depressed than ever, ashamed that such a black thought had ever entered her mind, even for the few seconds it had. She was better than that. Better than that butcher who was even now apparently more welcome on this boat than she was.

  It was completely infuriating to her that Sean Galen was not only still on this boat, but alive at all. He was someone she could hate, and did for all she was worth. He had killed a number of her comrades in truly horrific fashion on his way to becoming the most feared and hated of the Freeborn assassins that had killed so many Commonwealth personnel. It was unconscionable that Meredith Trenton not only didn't know who he was, but hadn't ordered him off the ship the second they had returned from. . .

  From Sean Galen saving the three of us, her thinking completed another circle as she realized she was back where she started. With her, the Captain and her husband having been taken because she hadn't been doing her job. Because she had let her Captain down.

  She found herself hoping that Lincoln wasn't permanently injured, a long way from her vicious thoughts only a few minutes before that had shamed her. If he was then she was at least partly to blame because she could have prevented it perhaps, had she been more aware.

  But her thoughts darkened once again as she returned to Sean Galen. His having saved her life did not negate the way he had killed her friends and comrades. It didn't mitigate the way he had mutilated their corpses and then left them to be found by other Red Devils. Mocking them. Taunting them.

  The image of Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Kineer flashed into her mind as she recalled his laughing at some prank she had pulled. He had deserved better than to be left like that, so horribly disfigured that his family had to have his burial closed casket.

  Whatever she might owe Galen for saving them, she owed him double for what he had done to Kineer and the others. And someday, somewhere, she would see to it that he paid. Not here, but somewhere.

  With her determination reformed, Faulks almost stormed into the galley on her way to her quarters.

  And literally ran right into Sean Galen.

  

  Meredith heard it from the lounge where she was still seated, her back keeping her still for a little longer even as Sean Galen left the lounge, presumably on his way to his quarters. He would likely keep to himself, or congregate with Tony and Jessica until Weytan, at which point he would be gone.

  On the one hand she would be a little relieved that he was gone since that would eliminate any future problems with Faulks, assuming Faulks straightened up and flew right. Meredith didn't know what to hope for in that situation. Until she had been slapped with the realization that Linc had been right about her all along. Faulks had been someone she could depend on in jam. Steady and reliable even if she was abrasive. With the new development, or more accurately with Meredith's acceptance of the facts, she wasn't entirely sure she was comfortable with Faulks being aboard anymore. She honestly didn't know which would be better.

  She did know that she had to start thinking of what was better for her and Lincoln as a couple rather than just what was better for the ship. Or even the crew. That didn't mean she wouldn't try and think of the crew's best interest because that was as much a part of her as breathing, something that had been drummed into her since her earliest days at the Academy where she'd been on the Command Track from her second year. You always considered the effect on the crew. You might still make the same decision, but you didn't make it without that consideration. Even if your only thought was to regret the casualties you were about to risk among them.

  She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, wishing she could go back just one week. Go back one week and listen to her husband when he tried to tell her she was making an error in judgment. When she was making a mistake.

  She shifted slightly in the overstuffed chair trying to find a more comfortable position. More comfortable as opposed to actual comfort which she knew she wasn't going to find today, or for several days after all the abuse her back had encountered today. She hated to admit the weakness, but asking Tony for something to ease the pain and help her sleep was looking like a good idea at the moment.

  Just as the throbbing in her back started to ease she heard a loud thud from the galley followed by startled exclamations, and then a short scream from Jessica Travers. A startled curse from Tony Giannini and a cry of outrage from Faulks followed before Meredith could get to her feet, but once she did she took the few steps to the lounge doorway to see Faulks on the floor with a gun lying beside her and Sean Galen perched atop her with that horrific knife to her throat.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “What the hell is going on here?!” Meredith shouted.

  “I was on my way to my quarters Cap'n and he attacked me!” Faulks cried out. She was holding very still and Meredith didn't miss the fact that her outstretched hand was only millimeters from the gun on the floor.

  “Galen, get off her,” Meredith ordered, but the engineer didn't move. He was staring at Faulks with an intensity that was frightening.

  “I said get off her!” Meredith repeated, more firmly this time.

  “No,” the word was flat. “I told you what would happen and I'm a man of my word. All I was doing was going to my room. She hit me as I rounded the corner, gun in her hand.”

  Meredith looked up to see Tony Giannini frozen at the end of the galley table. He looked at her and nodded once. Jessica Travers was behind him, almost back into the kitchen, wide-eyed. When she caught Meredith looking at her she nodded as well.

  “Faulks, it seems there's a difference of opinion about what you were doing,” she said carefully. “I'm curious as to why there's a gun lying next to you instead of in its holster where is should be, assuming you're telling the truth.”

  “It's not my gun and won't fit in my holster, Cap'n,” Faulks replied, her eyes locked on Galen's, her hatred almost palpable. “It's one I picked up on the station.” Meredith nodded, remembering that she had seen that happen.

  “Mister Galen, I'm not going to ask you again to get off her,” she tried to sound menacing and Galen just laughed.

  “If I get off her it'll be with her throat cut,” he warned, eyes dancing with violence. “All I wanted was off this boat. No trouble, no fuss. Wasn't for you, I would be. In fact, if it wasn't for you none of this would be happening. I'm not sure I want to give her another chance to kill me. She can't do it, but she might hurt me and there's no point in taking the chance.”

  “You have my word that won't happen,” Meredith said firmly, resulting in another round of derision from her former engineer.

  “Your word? About Faulks? We've had this conversation Captain. She doesn't do a damn thing you tell her to unless it happens to be something she wants to do. You know that as well we do.” Meredith felt her face flush at the barb, more from its truthfulness than anything else.

  “As I recall,” he went on, “you just got through telling me how you'd had a word with Faulks and this wasn't going to be a problem, at least not on the boat. Yet here we are.”

  Meredith was losing control of this situation, had already lost control of her entire ship in fact. She reached behind her and drew a small pistol from beneath her jacket and leveled it at Sean Galen's head.

  “Get off her, Mister Galen,” she said firmly. “If you don't, I'll shoot you.”

  “That won't save her,” he replied calmly without moving. “And if you don't kill me you won't get a second chance,” he warned, smiling slightly. “All I wanted was to be left alone. And you people can't even do that. You take and you take and you take until there's nothing left but blood and then you take that, too. So go ahead, Captain,” his slight smile bloomed into a broad one. “Give it a shot. One hundred and seventy-three of your best have tried and failed. You just might be able to get it done. But your gorilla won't survive,” he promised grimly.

  “Do it Cap'n!” Faulks said immediately. “It's worth it! So long as you kill him it's worth it!”

  “Which one o' your lyin', murderin' 'comrades' are you so mad at me about?” Galen asked suddenly. “I'd run down a list but some of them I can't really remember that well. Byers, maybe? Short? Ramses? They were your kind of people, weren't they Faulks? Bullies and cowards. 'Course all of 'em turned out to be cowards in the end, didn't they?”

  “Tom Kineer!” Faulks bit out. “That's who!”

  “Ah, Master Gunnery Sergeant Kineer,” Galen smiled again and Meredith had to fight not to shiver. She'd had no clue how utterly cold Sean Galen could be. None. Had Linc known this? She looked at Giannini to see the medic watching things closely. He might have known. Neither of them had said a thing to her.

  “A raping, murdering skunk of a man and a child molester to boot,” Galen sneered at Faulks, lowering his head until he was face to face with her. “I carved a lightning bolt on him after I cut his manhood off. Did you know that, Gunnery Sergeant Faulks? Did they put that into the report? A raping pedophile doesn't really need anything like that anyway, right?”

  “You lying son-of-a-bitch!” Faulks moved slightly and stopped as the knife cut into her neck the slightest bit.

  “Oh, I'm not lyin',” Galen told her. “Know it for a fact. Your friend you're so proud of? Killed innocent women and children and laughed while he did it. Raped some of them beforehand including a twelve-year-old girl. You know what I regret most about Kineer? He wasn't as tough as I thought he would be. He only lived four days while I was working on him, Faulks. Screamed like a baby with diaper rash at the end. I imagine that's what his rape victims sounded like. Kinda ironic, ain't it?”

  “Tom Kineer was an honorable man, you rim scum!” Faulks snarled back. “As good a Marine as I've ever known in my life! If you took him it was from the back, I know that!”

  “His back was to me,” Galen shrugged slightly. “When you rape and kill children you give up the right to any kind of honorable end, you stupid Commie. Don't they teach you that when you learn how to murder innocent civilians? How many kids did you kill, bitch? How many pregnant women did you shoot in the belly and watch die?”

  “Enough!” Meredith snapped. “I'll count to three, Galen!”

  “She'll be dead at one,” he never looked up. “And you'll be dead at two,” he added. “It's always better to just shoot, Captain. Talking don't get it done.”

  “Sean,” Tony spoke suddenly, though he didn't move. “Sean, how do you know this guy Kineer did all that?” This was bad. Of all the scenarios he'd run through in his mind, this had not been among them. The Captain's treatment of Sean Galen had scratched off the veneer that normally covered all that hate and bitterness and Tony felt like he was seeing his friend for the first time.

  It was a definite learning experience.

  “He doesn't know because it's a damn lie!” Faulks all but yelled. “Shoot him Cap'n!”

  “I know because I pulled his DNA out of my dead sister,” Galen's voice was almost a whisper. “My twelve-year-old sister who was left laying atop my pregnant mother, shot through the stomach so that it killed an unborn brother and then left to bleed to death.”

  “My mother had one of your Red Devil patches in her hand, you Commie bitch,” he growled, his head twisting almost as if he was a wolf, growling over a kill. Tony decided that wasn't really inaccurate.

  “And his DNA was inside my dead sister,” he spat out. “So yes, Faulks, you pathetic, simpleminded, partially trained ape, I killed your friend. It took me two years just to find him and I killed all of you I could until I did find him and when I did, I made him suffer. You can't imagine, Faulks, what I did to him. The way I cut him, the pain I caused him. And all the time I was sorry that I couldn't make it worse. That I couldn't make him feel what I had to feel when I came home to find my whole family, my whole village, butchered! You heard of me? Good! That was what I wanted. For you and everyone like you to fear my name. And you do fear me, don't you, monkey girl? I can see it in your eyes. You think you're ready to die if it means I go too, but I see it in your eyes, Faulks, and you're scared.” By now his voice was hardly more than a harsh whisper, yet it was all the more chilling because of it. “You want to live and you think that you will, somehow, but I promise you, no matter what else happens, no matter who else dies, if anything happens to me you don't get up from this floor. Get me?”

  But Faulks was already beaten. Hearing what she did had taken the fight out of her. Still, she couldn't accept that Tom Kineer-

  “How did you get his DNA to test?” she demanded. Carefully.

  “From your Marine database,” Galen told her calmly. “Your government keeps all your medical and personal information locked away on a computer. Including a sample of your DNA so they can identify you after someone like me gets a hold of you,” he smiled nastily. “Only they don't keep it all that locked, and your people ain't all that loyal. Simple test, simple results, easy to load into a computer and run a search. Your friend Kineer came up. No doubt about it.”

  “He even admitted it to me, before he knew I was going to kill him. He thought I was going to turn him over to you people for a trial. Stupid bastard,” he snorted. “You people really ought to learn who you're dealing with before you start murdering a man's family.”

  “I…I can't believe it,” Faulks almost breathed. “I would never. . .I'd never have believed it. I'm still not sure I do. You can't prove it,” she accused suddenly.

 

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