Even if I gave Khala control of my body, something which I wasn’t ready to do, there was no guarantee she could win. There was my agreement with Velspatt to consider, but at that point all I was really more concerned about surviving my encounter with the Corrector. If I couldn’t kill him I could at least injure him sufficiently that he couldn’t pursue us and who knows I’d already gotten lucky dealing with a member of the edant k’teth once before maybe I’d get lucky again.
The air around us abruptly grew very turbulent and I knew that the ship be almost on top of us. I didn’t look back or gave indication that I knew the ship was there. Taevok was climbing back to his feet and I didn’t want myself to get distracted when a golden opportunity had just presented itself. I kicked Taevok across the chest and he collapsed down to the ground. I was bringing my foot back to do it again when my other foot was yanked out from under me. I went down rolling, kicking and swinging my fists at the Corrector as he jumped on top of me.
We rolled around the ground pummeling one another with our fists as we each struggled to gain the upper hand. His blows were powerful and hurt like hell, but he wasn’t able to bring his arm back all the way and thus utilize his full strength. My own strength paled in comparison to his, but in one way at least I had the upper hand. I was a lot faster and I concentrated my blows hitting him again and again in the same spots. Before he’d been able to overwhelm me with the pure fury of his attacks, but now that some of his steam had cooled off and my lone advantage was finally starting to pay off.
I hurled my fist at the left side of his face and the blow actually seemed to rattle him a bit because he stopped and shook his head. I seized the opportunity this provided me, pushed him up with my hands then kicked him as hard as I could across the chest with both of my feet. He flew up then down over the edge of the roof. I silently climbed back to my feet and whirled around to find, just as I had guessed, our ride was waiting hovering in the air beside the roof with the entrance ramp extended. I eagerly leapt into motion hurling my fists at the remaining three guards that Rayland was still battling with the undersized pistol. I quickly took them out then turned back to the others screaming at the top of my lungs, “What the hell are you waiting around for? Get your asses moving and get yourselves up that damned ramp!”
Rayland grinned at me, turned to the injured Kaya who he scooped up off the ground and leapt across the rooftop with Kaya in his arms. Farris, with my sister slung up over his shoulder, followed suit and in short order I was the only one left on the roof top. I don’t know what prompted it, but I got this sudden impression that I wasn’t alone. I spun and let out a dozen or so of my more choice curses as I found my friend, the corrector Taevok, speeding toward me. “Shit,” I yelled. “This guy just won’t stay down!”
“Sorry,” I shrugged gesturing over my shoulder. “You see that ship there? It’s my ride and I really must be leaving.”
I took off running toward the entry ramp and leapt across the edge of the roof. I landed on my feet and started up the ramp into the ship, but fell flat on my chest when a sudden weight came tearing into me from behind. My damn boobs hurt like hell from the impact, and I clutched at them with my hands while kicking out at the Corrector with my feet. He flew back and started to slide down the ramp, but not before his hand latched around my ankle.
“Jellfree!” My sister called out and her cries her joined by ones from Kaya, and Farris. They all rushed to the edge of the platform, but by then it was too late and Taevok and I both went tumbling over the edge of the ramp.
Chapter Ten
The two of us fell toward the ground at a terrifying speed, but all Taevok seemed interested in doing was continuing our fight. He swung his fists at me even as we continued to plummet. I dodged his blows and grappled hold of his arms pushing them away from me.
“Are you nuts?” I cried out. I closed my eyes and prepared for my life to end, but then Khala acted and I realized there was still a chance. It had been stupid of me to believe that a fall from the roof would have killed the Corrector when his symbiote had the same gravity defying capabilities as mine.
‘Grab on to Taevok and whatever you do–‘ Khala’s voice screamed within my mind, ‘–keep his back pointed toward the ground!’
Khala didn’t explain and it would have been foolish to argue with her with time running so short. I complied, immediately hooking my arms around the Corrector’s biceps. As we continued to plummet I felt Khala working her magic and I could myself swap between feeling weightless to suddenly feeling as if an enormous weight were pressing into me then back again. Taevok howled, cursing in Qharr and clutched hold of me attempting to dislodge my hands.
An invisible force pressed into my stomach, which I presumed was the Taevok’s symbiote attempting to dislodge me and it was all I could do to keep my hold. Abruptly, the pressure disappeared and I screamed at the top of my lungs as he broke free from my grip and slammed his fist into my chest. I threw my free hand back to retaliate, but then suddenly everything ended when we went crashing to the ground with a near-deafening thud.
Dust from the ground rose all around us, I clenched my eyes shut and I threw my hands up to cover them. Once the dust had settled I opened them up again and looked around breathlessly taking in my surrounding. We’d landed on the opposite side of the compound from the loading area where slaves were brought in. There were a dozen patrol ships parked about twenty meters away. I looked down at the Corrector, realizing quite suddenly that he was not moving, and discovered much to my disbelief that his body had been embedded into the ground around us. ‘How do I tell if he is dead?’
‘Feel the side of his neck, just above where his shoulder meets it.’
I did as she suggested and put my fingers against the spot she had suggested I didn’t feel anything and after some help from Khala we were able to determine that he was in fact dead. “What about the symbiote? Is it dead?” I spoke aloud as I staggered back to my feet.
“No, but if he does not find a host within the next few hours he will die,” she responded appearing at my side with her pretend hands on her illusory hips and her phantom lips pursed.
I nodded then glanced over at the patrol ships. “You think we’ll be able to get one of those flying?”
She bit her lip and shook her head, “If the Qharr have added user restrictions to a simple thing like a comm panel I do not doubt that a patrol ship would be given similar lockouts.”
I glanced up and took note of our ship, which was starting to move away from the building, and grimaced turning to Khala “They probably think I’m dead. What are we going to do?”
Khala grinned, “Do what you did with the comm panel. Use the Corrector’s biometric signature to activate the ship.”
I nodded and reached down to grab at Taevok’s lifeless hand, but dropped it when I caught sight of the phase pistol holstered at his waist. I quickly snatched it up then point it down at his elbow joint and pulled the trigger. It took nearly a dozen shots to sever his forearm from the rest of his arm and the act had cause most of the flesh on either side of his elbow to become charred. On the plus side the phase bolts had actually cauterized the wound so I didn’t have to deal with any blood as I toted around his severed limb, but on the down side it stunk like hell. I’d smelt burn flesh on a handful of occasions, but it had always been human flesh. The smell of Qharr flesh was actually a lot worse; I wrinkled my nose against the god-awful stench and fought down the sudden urge to puke.
I tucked the pistol into my waistband then snatched his severed arm up, glanced at his dead body one final time before taking off toward the ships at my top speed. In just a few short seconds I had found my way to one of the vessels. I held Taevok’s hand up to the biometric sensor and let a long sigh of relief when the hatch popped open. I quickly leapt inside and made my way to the control system where once again I was forced to use the Corrector’s hand to get the ship started, but once it had been activated I could manipulate the controls with my own hands. Just
like I had with the control panel back in the compound, Khala translated the controls and strangely I knew just what buttons to press to get all the pre-flight procedures out of the way.
“How is that even possible?” I asked aloud my voice barely even a whisper.
“You really haven’t figured it out by now?” came Khala’s response from the seat beside me. “Your mind is subconsciously tied to mine. The longer we’re bonded the more of our knowledge is shared with one another. It’s why you can speak and understand the Qharr language, it’s why you’re fighting skills have such remarkable improvement it’s also why you’re able to manipulate the controls so easily.”
I swallowed hard and stared at her with wide eyes, “Our minds are merging?!”
“Not exactly,” she replied grimacing her hands tapping against the control interface. “What makes us both unique individuals remains intact. We share some things, but your memories and personal thoughts will remain yours and the same is true for me. The sort of things that are shared are learned skills, languages, fighting abilities, and any skill that is performed on a repeated basis. For instance, since becoming joined with you I’ve gain a better working knowledge of your language along with the ability to cook. As a matter of fact I know the proper means of preparing a dish you call beef stew.”
I grinned and shook my head, “So you learn to cook and I learn how to pilot ships and fight bad guys. Doesn’t sound like much of a trade off to me.”
Khala shrugged. “It’s something different. There aren’t very many Qharr warriors who can cook. They usually leave that to what they believe are lesser beings. Besides, being bonded with a hosts allows me to remain living which is definitely something I’d like to continue doing and you’re one of the few hosts that it can be said I actually like.”
I glanced at her to see if perhaps I could detect a hint of deception, but then I realized that the image I was staring at was an illusion and in and of itself a deception. How could I detect a lie from a false image? I shook my head and nodded unable to think of anything to say to her that wouldn’t sound snide. I still had a pretty hard time with what she’d done with me and I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be on friendly terms with a creature that would do something like that. We’d agreed to work with each other, but that didn’t mean we had to be friends.
I glanced down at the display as I took the ship up and noted a blinking red light. It took me a second, but I realized the blip meant the sensors had picked up a ship on the long range sensors. It certainly wasn’t Jaysen since the ship she was piloting was much too close. Whoever it was they weren’t friendly and I really didn’t want to be around when they showed up. “You may want to destroy those other patrol ships,” Khala stated suddenly glancing at me with raised eyebrows.
I nodded in agreement. It made sense, destroying the patrol ships would prevent the Qharr at the base from pursuing me or the others. I waited until I’d put a little more distance between myself and the ships parked below then armed two missiles and blew all the vessels below to hell. As a slave compound, it was doubtful the Qharr wouldn’t have seen any reason to outfit the base with any other ships and lucky for me it wasn’t standard practice for the Qharr to leave the shields up for parked ships. Unfortunately, as my ride rose into the air the approaching ship drew close enough that I was able to identify its type. It was a J’narr class destroyer and while it was pretty small as destroyers went it was definitely big enough to make quick work of both me and the rescue ship.
The destroyer sped quickly across the sky, reaching the rescue ship in what seemed the blink of an eye. My comm panel blinked and I looked down to see that the destroyer was broadcasting across all frequencies. I opened a channel to listen in. “This is the Inquisitor Destroyer Qellanas to the unknown ship. Identify yourself!” An angry voice demanded in the Qharr tongue over the intercom.
“This is the rescue vessel V’narr,” I heard Jaysen’s voice responded. “Is there a problem, Qellanas? We just lifted off for a repair run to the city.”
“Why is your identifier beacon not active?!” the Qharr asked.
“That system is one of several that have been damaged. The beacon needs replacing and the compound here lacks the necessary parts,” Jaysen responded.
“Land and submit your vessel for inspection!” The Qharr screamed his voice growing even louder than it had been before.
“Ah, screw it!” Jaysen called back switching to English. “Go fuck yourselves!”
The destroyer didn’t answer, but instead started firing on the rescue ship. “Dammit!” I cursed before opening up a comm line to the destroyer. “Qellanas this is Het’ma patrol ship three, please respond.”
A new voice responded and I was more than a little surprised to find that I recognized it, “Het’ma three, this is High Inquisitor Duvak Nakyrr. We received an alert from your compound. Perhaps, you could tell us what is happening.”
Duvak a High Inquisitor? That confirmed what I had previously guessed about my former master being demoted. I guess someone higher up most have really been pissed at him to bust him back to his former position. Not surprising considering that the Overseer had been killed under his watch and he had a group of rebels to outwit him so easily. I stared out the view port and bit my lip. My mind racing as I struggled to think of something to say that would enable me to help out the others.
I was running short of time, Jaysen was doing a pretty good job dodging the destroyer’s phase fire, but it was only a matter of time before their shots got through and Duvak wasn’t going to wait around for me to give an answer for too much longer. I considered trying to convince him that the rescue ship was telling the truth about being damaged, but Jaysen had pretty well screwed that possibility up and I don’t think it would have worked in any case. I closed my eyes then let a slow smile creep onto my face when I realized what I was going to do.
“High one, a group of hu-man rats are attempting to escape they’ve already killed a number of soldiers and I believe they may have also gotten to the Corrector. One of them displayed incredible strength far beyond that of an ordinary human as if she were bonded with a K’teth,” I replied trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible.
“It is them,” Duvak responded his voice growing very quiet the way it always did when he was thinking. “Het’ma three, I’m going to let you inside the shields. I want you to dock with the Qellanas and make your way directly to the command center.”
I grinned shaking my head, in disbelief. God, he’d actually fallen for it! “As you command High Inquisitor, but I was hoping that–” I pretended to protest to add icing to the cake. Nearly any Qharr warrior would wish to take part in the attack.
“Rest easy, warrior. There is no honor to be lost. While the pilot is very skilled, the ship is weaponless, and there is no honor to be gained in participating in its destruction,” Duvak coughed in a manner which, knowing him, probably meant he was amused. “Now come, young soldier, hurry aboard. I wish to speak with you immediately.”
“As you command, Corrector,” I replied and silently cursed myself when I realized my mistake.
“Clever,” Duvak replied suddenly switching to English. “You almost had me fooled, human. Had you not slipped up and referred to me by my former rank you could have easily snuck inside the ship’s shield and turned your weapons on us. My compliments your mastery of our language is impressive, but you may wish to work on disguising your voice. It is unusually high-pitched for a Qharr.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I replied dryly. “You know I’ve been wanting to say this for twenty-four years, Duvak. I hate you, I hate every god-damned thing about you gray-skins. You murdered my parents, and I will make you pay for that now that I have the power.”
Duvak’s initial response was a blast of phase fire that would have hit me if the ship’s sensors hadn’t warned me. I jammed my hands down on the control and the ship lurched hard to port as the bright red bolts flew past it narrowly missing my right wing
.
“You are the female from the rebel hideout. The one claiming to be Jellfree?” Duvak’s voice responded through the intercom.
“That’s right, Duvak, but I really am Jellfree. I killed the Overseer and got stuck with her symbiote and well… you get the picture. Anyway, it’s just been lovely chatting with you, but I really must be going,” I said then jammed my finger on the comm panel changing frequencies.
“Jaysen!” I called out. “You there?”
“Lexa?” Came Kaya’s voice through intercom. “God we thought you were dead for sure! Is that you in the patrol ship?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I’ll tell you all about it once we escape… Just um… you guys have any ideas? Things aren’t looking so good.”
“Not really. We were going to use the leap drive, but the drive coils have been damaged and there’s no way we can safely jump,” Kaya responded.
“I have an idea,” Khala muttered suddenly from beside me. I listened as she relayed her idea, then slowly nodded realizing that it just might work even if it was one of the more insane ideas I’d ever considered.
“Khala’s got a plan,” I spoke twisting and sliding my hands across the control and sent the ship flying into a sideways loop. “Look I can’t risk telling you everything over the comm systems. The Qharr on that destroyer are probably listening. Things are going to get a bit messy. Watch for my sign… then I’m going to need a ride.”
“Just don’t get yourself killed,” Kaya replied and there was a brief click as the comm line closed.
I dodged another barrage of phase bolts then zoomed at high speed toward the destroyer’s belly just below the aft thrusters where, according to Khala, it would nearly impossible for the ship’s phase cannons to get a lock on me. I got as close to the shield grid as I dared then punched my hand down on the controls activating the autonav systems. I leapt out of my seat and moved within the confined space to the back of the cabin.
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