Warrior by Angela Knight Read Free Book Online

sixty-five minutes, his comp whispered in his mind.
    Galar sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. He’d only slept a couple of hours, but it would have to do. He moved to make his sprawling bed with the precision drummed into him at the Vardonese Military Academy years before. One of the Outpost’s ’bots could have done the job, but he considered picking up after himself an exercise in personal discipline.
    Tlain had taught him that maintaining discipline was the only way to avoid pain.
    Job done, he gave the room a quick scan. Dark, gleaming shelving ran along the wall opposite the window, a match for the bed’s heavy headboard and the wall panels that concealed his clothes and weapons. The shelves held mementoes from his temporal travels—a few books bound in calfskin, beeswax candles in massive golden candlesticks, a rapier with an intricate basket hilt. Trids of his parents, one of him standing with them at his Vardonese Academy graduation. Baird, his Comanche Class Warlord father, tall and dark and massive, with the red and blue of a House Arvid tattoo spilling down his face. His mother, Alina, blond and lithe, with the build of a Samurai Class Warfem, the colors of Kasi House marking her cheek. They both looked so proud.
    He’d damned near destroyed them both. The son of the vice admiral of Vardonese Military Intelligence and one of its most decorated senior officers, played for a fool by a double agent. A scandal like that could have ended his parents’ careers, as well as his own. It was a good thing Galar had managed to turn the situation around before it exploded in their collective faces.
    It all began when a communications officer in the Vardonese Interstellar Fleet had attracted the interest of Galar’s superiors in military intelligence. Galar had been assigned to investigate whether the man was indeed selling information on ship movements to the Xerans.
    Senior Femmat Agent Tlain Morey promptly volunteered her assistance. Since Galar had known her for years—they worked in the same intelligence division—he’d gratefully accepted. Over the months that followed, he’d become entranced by the Femmat’s sensuality, beauty, and intelligence.
    Luckily she wasn’t as smart as either of them thought.
    Three months later, Galar had the officer under surveillance when the spy met with Tlain one dark night in a city park. They’d acted so transparently suspicious, Galar had found himself hoping they were having an affair. After all, the Femmat knew Galar was watching the suspected spy in a variety of imagizer disguises. Why would she be so stupid?
    He’d later realized Tlain simply enjoyed the risk that he might be watching. Taunting him was all part of the fun.
    Driven to discover the truth one way or another, Galar had cracked Tlain’s secret computer unit, kept hidden in a diamond bracelet. He would never forget the cold horror he’d felt as he’d read her matter-of-fact account of her espionage activities. She’d been working for the Xerans for years as a leader of the spy ring, which was even larger than Galar and his superiors had thought.
    Sickened, he’d shot the file to headquarters and confronted her with the evidence before killing her in that last explosive confrontation.
    Thus, instead of getting cashiered for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty, he’d received a commendation.
    Yet Galar had known he could no longer serve in Vardonese Military Intelligence. He couldn’t risk another mistake that might destroy his parents’ careers, so he’d sought a post as an Enforcer in the Galactic Union’s Temporal Enforcement Agency. He’d spent the last decade working his way up the ranks.
    Atoning for his gullibility.
    As Galar strode along the labyrinth of corridors toward the main briefing hall, he downloaded the Outpost’s DNA results on the Xeran. He’d be expected to present a report on