“Thank the mystics you’re here,” Awen said, turning from the group and motioning him to come closer.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Piper. She’s barricaded herself in cell block one.”
“Why can’t you just open the door?”
“I have been restricted from accessing the door’s actuator,” TO-96 said. “And Azelon seems to be offline for the moment.”
“What about a manual override?” Rohoar said.
“There isn’t one.” Magnus stepped away from the window and made room for Rohoar. “The only person who’s able to control this door right now is Piper.”
Rohoar stepped forward, turned his head to the side, and looked through the opening with a large Jujari eyeball. He saw a bloodied prisoner lying unconscious on the floor in his cell.
The Jujari was about to ask where Piper was when he caught sight of two little feet tucked up under her legs. She was barely visible, sitting on the ground to one side. “What’s going on here?”
“We don’t know,” Awen replied.
Magnus shook his head. “We were interrogating the second prisoner in cell block five when we heard a scream. As soon as we got here, the blast door shut, and now she won’t come out.”
“Can’t you speak with her?” Rohoar asked Awen.
“I have. But she only wants to speak with you.”
Rohoar pulled away from the window. “Me?”
“Yes. She said she won’t talk to anyone else.”
Rohoar was growing tired of all these emotions in his chest. It was so exhausting. “Did she say anything else?”
“No.”
“And that prisoner?”
Magnus grunted. “The bastard probably said something, I imagine. He’s a son of a bitch.”
“But he looks dead.”
“I shut him up,” Awen replied.
Rohoar turned to her, curious. “You used the Unity to kill him?” It didn’t seem like something a Luma would do… or should do.
“No. But mystics know I would have liked to.”
Magnus cast Awen a surprised look, as if startled by this admission.
But Awen merely shrugged at him. “What?”
“So you have made him unconscious,” Rohoar stated.
“He’s asleep for now. I’ll release him once we’ve retrieved Piper. I don’t want him saying or doing anything else while she’s in there. Until Piper speaks to you, we really have no idea what went on in there.”
“I understand.” Rohoar took a deep breath and then closed his eyes. “Let me try.”
13
Piper trembled in the corner of the cell block. It felt like someone had just put firecrackers in her and set them off. All that was left was heat, pain, and the smell of something that made her eyes water. Hot tears ran down her cheeks. She felt alone. And despite the fire blazing in her heart, she felt cold. So cold.
The man, the prisoner, was asleep now. Awen had done that. Awen was also trying to open the door, but Piper didn’t want it opened. Not yet. Right now, she just wanted to be left alone. She didn’t want to speak with anyone. Well, except Rohoar. She would always speak with him. She’d told Awen as much too.
The man had said horrible things to her. Things she wasn’t sure she could ever forget. Things about Magnus, and about his brother Argus. He’d told her terrible things about other girls… things that made Piper’s head create images that she never wanted to see.
“Piper,” came a voice from inside the Unity. “Are you there?”
She slipped into her second sight and saw Rohoar standing in the middle of the cell block. He moved toward her and rested on his haunches.
“I’m here,” she replied, smearing tears away with the backs of her hands. “Thanks for coming.”
“Everyone would like you to come out. To open the blast door.”
“No.” Piper shook her head and then buried it in her arms. “I don’t want to. And don’t try to make me.”
“I won’t.”
There were a few seconds of silence. Piper looked up and noticed that the big doggy had slid a little closer. “What happened, little one?”
But Piper didn’t want to talk about it. It hurt too much.
“Did that man say something to you?”
Piper nodded. “Mmm hmm.”
“May I ask you what he said?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to say.”
“Why not?”
“It hurts.”
“He hurt you with his words?” Rohoar’s voice sounded like he was getting angry—not at her, but at the prisoner.
“Uh huh,” she said from under her arms again.
But there was another reason Piper didn’t want to repeat what she’d heard. She was worried that she might get in trouble with Magnus. Even with Awen and the others. She knew secrets, things that no one else in the whole wide galaxy knew. At least that’s what the man had said. And if she told the secrets, Piper was sure she’d get in trouble. All the adults would be so mad with her.
Worse still, Piper was mad with Magnus. She couldn’t believe that he was capable of killing his own brother, and of doing horrible things to little girls. But this prisoner had been so convincing. She’d told him that she didn’t believe him, but that didn’t seem to affect him at all. He’d said that her lack of belief didn’t make what happened any less true. And somehow, Piper felt he was right. She’d experienced that in her own life: trying to ignore the facts surrounding her father’s death didn’t mean she was any less guilty of his murder.
Life, she was beginning to realize, was hard. There was more dark than light, and the flashlights were getting harder to find. Maybe that’s why she wanted Rohoar here, because he was a good person to light the way forward. He was not a Marine who’d hurt little girls or killed his brother. He was also not a Luma who tried to correct her every day like Awen. In fact, the big Jujari was a lot like her—different, misunderstood, and special.
When Piper looked up a second time, Rohoar had scooted beside her. While she knew it wasn’t possible, somehow she felt his warmth envelope her—not just from within the Unity but with her physical body as well.
“May I provide hugs?” Rohoar asked.
“No. And it’s just a hug. Unless you’re giving someone lots of them all at once.”
“May I provide a hug then?”
“No.”
“I see. So the difference in quantity does not have a bearing on whether or not they are comforting?”
“I don’t know. I just… it’s that—”
“Piper? Are you in there?” Her mother’s voice came from the hallway. She’d just arrived, and Piper saw her standing between Magnus and Awen, fist pounding on the window. “Come out here, baby. Open the door. Please.”
“Your mother would like you to come out,” Rohoar said.
“I know. I can see her.”
“I think everyone would like you to. I know I would too.”
But the thought of seeing everyone right now made her afraid. “I’m scared, big doggy. I just want to crawl into a small hole in the ship where no one can find me and stay there.”
Rohoar sighed. Again, it was as if she could feel the beast’s hot breathe play with her natural body’s hair. She almost opened her normal eyes to see if he was there, but she could see his body still standing in the corridor with everyone else, eyes closed.
“Once, when I was a pup about your age, I’d broken something that belonged to my father.”
“Was he the mwadim then?”
“Yes, he was the mwadim then.”
“What did you break?”
“It was a gold bracelet that my mother had given him when he’d conquered the last challenger and became the leader of our people. So it was very special to him.”
“How’d you break it?”
“I was using it to play catch.”
“You mean fetch?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Rohoar said.
“
It’s what we play with dogs on Capriana. We throw something, like a stick or a ball, and then they bring it back.”
“Little one, I have already explained this. I am not one of your canines.”
“But you could play fetch if I throw you something, right?”
“You’re missing the point. I was throwing it to my brother when it struck a rock and broke.”
“I bet your daddy was mad.” Piper looked up at Rohoar’s face to see what he’d say.
“He wasn’t mad.”
“He wasn’t? Because mine would have been.”
“But he was sad.”
“Because his bracelet broke?”
“No.” Rohoar rested his head against the wall and looked off in the distance. “Because I’d endured the pain of wondering how I would tell him about it for three days.”
Piper thought she understood what the big doggy was saying. But this seemed like it was really important to him. So she wanted to make sure. “You kept it a secret because you didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Of course, yes. But when I finally told him about what I’d done, he wasn’t nearly as mad as I imagined he would be. Yes, he was upset that my mother’s gift had been damaged. But he was more upset that my heart had been hurt. And with each day that passed, that pain became greater.”
“Would you have told him sooner? I mean, if you knew he wouldn’t be mad with you?”
“Certainly. And I would have saved myself the pain of keeping the secret in my heart. Those things do something to you. It’s like a thorn in your paw that festers the longer you let it remain. But if you can face the temporary pain of pulling it out, you save yourself the long-term pain of letting it stay in.”
“Rohoar?”
“Yes, little one.”
“I don’t have paws.”
She felt a blast of air play with her hair.
“But I do have fingers, and sometimes they get splinters if I’m playing in the woods. I think that’s sorta the same.”
“It is similar, yes.”
“So you’re saying I should talk to Magnus?”
“Perhaps. That’s up to you. But I’m at least suggesting you open the door and let your mother in. We’d all like to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am okay.” But that wasn’t true. “But I don’t feel okay.” The emotions swirling in her heart were getting stronger. The images of what the prisoner had told her were coming back. They were more clear, as if she’d been there. As if she’d been one of the little girls that Magnus had hurt. As if she was his brother, Argus, who Magnus shot just because he was jealous of his brother’s advancement. The emotions were stabbing her chest like knives now. It was painful. Painful because she couldn’t imagine what those people felt under such dark forces. And painful because… because…
What if Magnus was still capable of all that evil?
The prisoner had said Magnus had changed a lot. And he was doing great things for the galaxy. But some things never changed in a person, no matter how much people wanted them to. Like Piper’s powers. That’d made her stand out in school because she was so different. She’d wanted to run away from her “gifts” as her mother called them. But she never saw them as gifts. And now she wanted to run away from everything the man had told her.
Piper wasn’t sure if she could look at Magnus again. Let him touch her. She wanted to ask him if all the things were true. But in her heart, she knew they were. The prisoner couldn’t be making them up—there was too much truth to them. They’d been said with conviction.
Worse, if she did speak of them, what if it provoked Magnus to do something horrible to her? What if he… what’s that word? What if he reslipped into his old behavior. No, relapsed. Yes, that was the term her mother had used for people who went off their medicines.
So, Piper wouldn’t speak of it.
She would make something else up. And then she’d pretend that the something else was real enough that she believed it—that they all would believe it. After all, her imagination was a powerful thing, or at least that’s what her mother had always said. And then—maybe then—that would allow her to act normal around Magnus and Awen and the others. The secrets would be locked away in her heart, and no one would know. It felt painful, like Rohoar not telling his father about the broken bracelet. But this was much worse than a piece of gold jewelry. This was about people’s lives.
Piper was suddenly aware of a furry arm wrapping around her. How long it had been there, she wasn’t sure. But it was warm and soft. And it pulled her close.
“Mr. Big Doggy, you’re hugging me.”
“I know.” Rohoar paused. “Do you want me to stop?”
Piper felt as though she’d been embraced by a warm blanket. “No, it’s okay. Just as long as I can pet you later too.”
The Jujari sighed. “I will permit it. But just once.”
“Same. Well, maybe more than just once. More than one hug feels nice.”
And with that, Piper activated the actuators and opened the blast door.
14
“Has she told you what Nos Kil said?” Magnus asked Awen. They stood alone in the war room waiting for the other platoon leaders and key leaders to arrive. Magnus had grown agitated over the last two days, fearful of what the sadistic man had said to the little girl.
Awen shook her head, her face betraying a hint of remorse. “No. Just that he was really mean to her.”
“Really mean?”
“Those are her words. She said he shouted at her and said he wanted to kill her.”
“Mystics.” Magnus rubbed his face with his hand. “I can’t believe I let that happen. I should have been more attentive.”
“But you didn’t let it happen. Piper did that herself. She overrode Azelon, she walked into Nos Kil’s cell block.”
“Yeah, but we should have had security measures in place to keep that from happening.”
“Magnus, she outmuscled an alien AI using her powers in the Unity. You can’t create security measures for that.”
“Can you?”
Awen jerked back in surprise. “No. Not against her.”
“Then she’s too powerful for her own good.”
“Magnus!”
“No, I didn’t mean anything bad by it. I just…”
“What did you mean?”
“I just meant that I understand why you wanted to train her so badly now. The only way that someone with that type of power exists in the galaxy is if she’s taught how to manage her gifts.”
“That’s better,” Awen said with a curt nod.
“And how’s Azelon? Doesn’t she have some audio or video of what happened?”
“Unfortunately, no. She says she’s mostly back to normal.”
“Mostly?”
“Apparently there’s still some system memory loss, but the bots are working on it. She assures me she’ll be able to repair everything.”
“’Six confirmed that?”
Awen nodded. “He did. Whatever Piper did created a kind of energy pushback that essentially shut down her sensors and expression extension, confining her to the ship’s core for a short period of time. Eventually, she was able to reconfigure her systems and regain control of her faculties. But had she forced more energy into the system…”
“She could have kept Azelon pinned down?”
“Something like that. I’m just glad she didn’t. TO-96 said it could have been a lot worse.”
“Worse? As in…”
“As in, she could have crippled the ship and eliminated Azelon altogether.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Fortunately, the Novia Minoosh’s singularity exists on a core on Ithnor Ithelia, as well as a backup of Azelon’s core.”
“Do you think that’s what Nos Kil was after?”
“Hard to say.” Awen tapped her lips. “Azelon says it’s still proprietary information. But somehow, I think it’s more than that.”
“More than a singularity core of
an entire alien species?”
Awen shrugged. “What would Kane do with it?”
“Well, he could… I mean there’s always… Eh, I’ve got nothing.”
“Exactly. Sure, he could try and tap it for information, maybe try and repurpose the hardware or something—if there is any. But he’s not a scientist or a theorist. He’s a Navy admiral.”
“Right,” Magnus said, even though he had doubts about Kane, ones only recently acquired. Over the past two days, Magnus had continued to meet with the more willing of the two prisoners—Ricio. The pilot had been surprisingly forthcoming in his answers, almost convincing Magnus that the prisoner wanted to join their resistance. But until Ricio was properly vetted, even Magnus and all his optimism had to conclude the man was an enemy combatant.
Still, his intel about the rogue Repub admiral was disturbing at best. And even if Magnus’s changing opinions about Kane were to be believed, they still didn’t change the fact that the enemy was out for blood. “Which is why I think whatever Nos Kil was after is a weapon. And that’s not just the Marine in me speaking.”
“It’s the gladia in you,” Awen replied.
Magnus’s smile widened even further. She was attractive when she got tactical. “Well, I just wish Azelon would come out with whatever is down there. All this secretive stuff is pissing me off.”
“Easy, big guy.” Awen rubbed his arm with her hand. “All in due time.”
Her hand felt good on his arm. It stirred something deeper within him—something you don’t have time for, Adonis.
“Hey,” Awen said, still touching him. “How are you doing? With Nos Kil’s confession I mean?”
Speaking of things he hardly had the time to process. Or maybe didn’t want to process? “I’m glad I know now.”
Awen searched his face as if looking for something more. When he didn’t say anything further, she asked, “That’s it?”
Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 111