Renegade

by Justine Davis

  “You are still,” he said.

  “In some ways,” she agreed. “Now that you have your answer, I would like mine.”

  “We did not actually agree to this bargain.”

  “I see.” She rose to her feet. “I expected nothing else from the Coalition.”

  To her surprise, his mouth twitched, almost into a wince. She would have sensed physical pain, so it must be at this assessment.

  “If you wish answers,” he said, “why do you not simply let the pain return, since you apparently have that ability?”

  She looked down at his helpless form. “I cannot imagine the level of pain it would take to break a man like you. You would die first.”

  “Yes.”

  It wasn’t a boast, it was fact, and she saw that in his eyes. She also saw that he was growing weary, and knew that she had no more time to spend. She walked over to the corner of the illusory room, where one of Eirlys’s creatures sat nibbling at a lingberry.

  She lifted Ringer, cuddling him for a moment. He had regained some of the weight he had lost while scrounging to survive in the ruins of Zelos, before Brander had found him and brought him home to Eirlys. He patted at her face kindly. She had discovered, to her surprise since she had never tried it before coming here, that the sharing of skills went both ways; Eirlys had some of hers with healing, and she had some of her daughter’s with animals.

  “Can you find her, my sweet?” she whispered to him. His ring-marked tail twitched. “She will know what to do. Go to Eirlys, now.”

  She put him down and he trotted away. The illusion of the office did not hold for him, and so it appeared he went straight through the wall.

  “You send animals on errands?”

  She turned back to him. “I merely told him to seek out my daughter, who will take it from there.” She smiled, unable to deny her pride.

  “The daughter your son traded himself into hades to save.”

  She went still at the memory. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Speaking of such, where is Jakel?”

  “To my regret, he still breathes.”

  His brows rose. “Feeling murderous?”

  “When it comes to those who try to harm my children? Completely.”

  “Then why am I still alive, if that is what this is?”

  “You had an easy chance, once before, to kill the Raider where he stood. Yet you kept your word and did not.”

  His mouth twisted wryly. “A decision I was worried about living to regret.”

  She realized in that moment that he still thought himself dead. Or about to be. Whether he yet believed any of what he was seeing now she did not know, but he thought—and accepted—that even if it was real, he was still as good as dead. It was only a matter of time.

  She understood, for in a way it was how she had felt, after Torstan’s death. That the blast that had reduced him to specks on the wind had taken her just as completely; it had only taken longer for her heart to give up. For she had her children holding her here, but there had come a time when her weakness and her grief had both soared at the same moment, and she was lost.

  She could not picture that ever happening to this man. Internal and external, Major Caze Paledan was a man of massive strength. A strength she admired. A strength she wished she herself had had.

  And yet, if she had not taken that fateful plunge off Halfhead, she would never have learned the secrets of the mountain, never have gained the skills to pull her son back from the very maw of death. She would have never been able to save the Raider for Ziem, and without him, Ziem would be already lost.

  “I kept the portrait in part to remind me of the cost. That the most beautiful woman I had ever seen died because of our objectives.”

  She stared at him as he not only answered her question without further prompting, but gave her an answer she’d never expected. That it was not the whole answer he had admitted. But for the moment, it was enough.

  Shockingly enough.

  She turned away from him. For in that moment, she was afraid she had lost all ability to mask her own emotions.

  And the major was, besides being clever and strong, a very perceptive man.

  Chapter 17

  WHEN PALEDAN woke, only then knowing he had slept again, the Raider was there. Not only there but in full gear, including the famous silver helmet he wore. And oddly, it was his appearance in battle attire that made Paledan believe this was actually real, that he was somehow still alive. He wondered if they’d done something, sedated him with something, for he felt unexpectedly calm given he was unable to move beyond breathing. And again he wondered, with a frown, why could he still breathe? Or talk? Or for that matter, even think?

  “You have a decision to make, and little time to make it,” Davorin said without preamble, cutting off his speculations.

  “I was of the impression I held no dice here, Davorin.”

  “You have one. How you roll it will determine your future.”

  Paledan studied the man for a moment. In another time, another place, he would have welcomed this man into his ranks. Except that he was too independent, too strong minded . . .

  There is no room in the Coalition for independent thought, Caze Paledan. If you continue to let your own mind and thoughts have sway, you will be blanked and relegated to the slave ranks.

  His first battle instructor’s words echoed in his mind. The threat of having his mind surgically blanked had terrified the child he’d been. He’d made the only choice possible. Which had led to many other choices.

  But if he’d known then what he knew now, would he have made the same decisions?

  It did not matter. Apparently, to his surprise, he had choices to make now.

  “My options?”

  “You make contact with Brakely before time runs out and tell him to hold. Or you do not, he sends troopers after you . . . and we let you die.”

  So. The man knew Brakely’s name. And that he had a scheduled check-in. He was not surprised. The man had a network that nearly surpassed the Coalition. In fact it likely did, here on this mist-shrouded planet.

  “And what have I to gain by delaying the inevitable destruction?”

  “Your life.”

  He would have shrugged, had he been able. “It is of little import. I would prefer death to what is left to me now.”

  The Raider smiled, a strangely understanding smile. “And if you could be healed? Completely?”

  He let out a sour chuckle. “The best Coalition doctors have made it clear that when this shift happened, it would be permanent, so do not think to fool me with such blather.”

  For a moment the Raider was silent. He lifted off the silver helm and ran a hand over his hair. Then he crouched beside the cot, looking at his helpless prisoner steadily.

  “Have you never wondered, Major, how I went from what you saw in Jakel’s den to leading that raid on the fusion cannon in such a short time?”

  Paledan’s gaze narrowed. “Of course I have. It should have been impos­sible. You were a breath from death when I saw you there.”

  “Yes. I was.” He said nothing more, just held his gaze.

  “You’re saying,” Paledan said slowly, “that you have some method of healing such grievous injuries? Some advanced medicine beyond even Coalition abilities?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Paledan frowned. His arm, which he could not feel . . . tingled. The woman. The portrait. What she had done with the pain.

  “Her?” he whispered in disbelief. “She healed you?”

  “She pulled me from the brink of death.” Paledan saw his mouth twist slightly. “I am not yet convinced that I had not already gone and she coaxed me back. Such is her power.”

  “This is . . . your mother you speak of.”

&n
bsp; “Yes.”

  “So it is likely . . . some part of the connection between you that allowed her to save you.”

  The man smiled, again in understanding. “So would I think, in your place. Trying to make logic out of impossibility.” Paledan nearly nodded, so close was this to his own earlier thought. “However, I can attest she has healed many who are no connection to her at all. And she is the reason you are still breathing, since you cannot move those muscles on your own.”

  So that was the answer to what he had wondered himself? He could not deny the truth of it, for he did still breathe, but. . . . “How?”

  “She draws something from Ziem herself. I do not pretend to understand it, but I cannot deny her results. This,” the Raider said, gesturing at him, “will be a lesser challenge, but perhaps more complicated because of the location of the shard.” Paledan blinked. They knew even this? “I presume it shifted when you moved so quickly?”

  He discarded for the moment the impossibility that they knew this, for obviously it was not impossible. “And if I am healed, it will only happen again.”

  The Raider looked at him with open curiosity. “Most would say any precious days of life gained would be worth it.”

  “If you can call knowing that any wrong step will end it living,” he said dryly.

  “Contention valid,” the Raider said with a nod. “But I was not speaking of merely putting you back to the condition before you fell. When I said your life, I meant it. The shard removed, your spine healed.”

  Something sharp, bright jabbed through him as if he had regained feeling. He did not know what it was, but it seized him, tightened his throat. Was whatever they—or she—had done wearing off?

  “It is not possible.” It came out harshly, with a note he didn’t recognize, no doubt because of that odd tightness of his throat.

  “It is not possible that I am alive, and yet I am here.”

  Paledan was finding it hard to think, so tangled was his mind. He was not used to such confusion, and he reached for something, anything to slow it all down. Seized upon the Raider’s battle attire.

  “You are dressed for fighting.”

  “Actually,” the man said casually, “I was merely overseeing some building.”

  A thought struck him. “A base for your cannon?”

  “Not yet. I prefer to keep it mobile for the time being.”

  “How can you possibly—”

  “Please, Major. You know better than to ask such a thing. Would you reveal to me your . . . scheduled visits to High Command?”

  The jab about the timing of the cannon raid was precise and delivered with a touch of humor that Paledan admired even as he was forced to admit that this man had outmaneuvered him on more than one front.

  “Contention valid,” he admitted.

  “You are nearly out of time,” the Raider said. “I will have your decision, please. I would suggest you placate your aide and buy yourself another day to consider, if nothing else. Although the Spirit tells me the healing process cannot be delayed too much longer, if you wish optimum success.”

  “The Spirit,” he muttered, shaking his head slowly.

  “Impossible, is it not? And yet there it is.”

  It was, of course, absurd. To think that some mystic woman could do what the skill of Coalition doctors could not. And yet . . .

  “I would speak to her again first,” he said.

  The Raider’s brows rose. He realized he’d spoken it in his usual tone of command. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. The man before him apparently accepted that as evidence of his realization and left it there.

  More than I would do.

  “I’m afraid there is no time. You are supposed to check in within the next few minutes, are you not?”

  “And how,” he snapped, “am I supposed to know what time it is? I don’t even know where I am.”

  The Raider smiled. “True enough. And that is how it will stay. But it is nearly dawn, which is when you left. And I would suggest that if possible, you gain at least two days without contact, for there may be a time in the healing process when you are unable.”

  He did not like the sound of that. Nor did he like how much the man knew. Someday he would like to learn how he managed it, but this was not the time, nor was he likely to learn from him anyway. The Raider didn’t make that kind of mistake.

  “Well, Major?”

  “I see my choices somewhat differently,” he said. “Either hold off my troops, as you said, or let them come and die anyway in the process. Which is what a Coalition officer would be expected to do, so that a new commander can be sent in to destroy anything that’s left of you.”

  “I will not deny that the fact that you have not yet initiated that destruction, while your replacement most likely would, is one of the reasons I offer you this choice.”

  He hadn’t expected that. “One of the reasons? There are others?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I know them?”

  “Only if you make the decision that will give me time to relate them.” One corner of the man’s mouth quirked upward. “And, of course, if I feel it wise to tell you.”

  His own mouth quirked in the same way. “I still say you would have gone far in the Coalition.”

  “No. For I have a powerful aversion to having my thinking done for me. And I confess, I am surprised you accept it.”

  Paledan thought of all the times that very thing had nearly brought him down, the times he had been saved only by his record of successes.

  “A decision, Major.” This time it was the Raider whose voice held the tone of command, and he had every reason for it. He was utterly, totally in charge at the moment.

  With some thought that if he lived, he could learn more of this man he must one day fight, Paledan finally spoke. “You have my comm link?”

  The Raider walked over to the shelf on the wall. A place that would have been mere steps away if he had been able to move. He walked back with the comm link in hand. “You should know the locating chip has been disabled. They will have no way to trace where you are.”

  He was surprised that he was not more . . . surprised.

  The Raider crouched beside him. “I’m sure you have duress codes in place. Obviously it is up to you whether to use them. But I assure you it will not help; they will never find us. And we are watching and will know if you did.”

  “And what makes you think the temptation of you putting an end to what is left of me will not overcome all else?”

  “I could not blame you for that. But what makes you think I will not just turn you over to Jakel, to whom you so endeared yourself when you handed him over to us?”

  “It is hard to torture a man who has no feeling in his body.”

  “The Spirit could restore the sensation of pain, as you learned.” The Raider lifted a brow. “But I would think the temptation of being healed and whole once more would be greater.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “That remains to be seen. Your time is up, Major. Now. Or not.”

  One last deep breath, and he nodded.

  “Ready?”

  “I cannot hold it,” he said, fighting the images that tumbled through his mind of a life spent like this, unable to do even such a small thing, and unable to even end it. He would welcome a Coalition decision to terminate him, rather than spend his days like this. And the fear that he would not be granted even that small mercy, that he would be keep alive as this useless thing hovered like a darker, thicker, poisonous version of Ziem’s mist.

  The Raider held out the comm link and keyed it. Paledan spoke. “Ziem Outpost Leader to base.” He knew Brakely had been apprehensive by both the speed with which he answered and the worried note in his voice.

  “Base here.
Cutting it close, Major.”

  “Yes.”

  “All well?”

  “Well. There?”

  “Nuisances. Nothing of import since you left.”

  They’ve been a little busy. Then, slowly, he said, “Call only if such occurs. I will remain out.”

  Brakely didn’t sound surprised. “How long, sir?”

  “Uncertain, as yet.”

  “Have you found some sign of them?”

  He found himself having to stifle a sour laugh. And when he glanced at the Raider, the damned brigand was grinning.

  “Perhaps. Enough to continue.” It was the only thing that would keep Brakely at bay, the thought that he might have found something. The Raider seemed to understand, for he made no move to cut off the connection.

  “Excellent, sir.” Brakely sounded encouraged then. “Check-ins the same?”

  He glanced at the Raider again. Then said, “Double it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Paledan out.”

  “Base out.”

  He’d done it. Committed himself to an uncertain fate and submitted himself to the will of the man who had the most reason of anyone on this planet to want him dead.

  Perhaps his spine had not been the only thing affected.

  Chapter 18

  PALEDAN WATCHED AS the Raider released the microphone key and shut the device off, without looking, as if he dealt with it often. He rose, walked over and put it on the shelf—it was very disconcerting, this illusion that they were in his office in the half-destroyed council building—then turned back.

  “You know much of how our equipment works.”

  “Necessary knowledge.” He gave Paledan an odd look. “Although I would much prefer to know how a man who is not a pilot managed to design such a versatile and agile craft as the air rover.”

  Paledan stared at him, wondering if he looked as stunned as he felt. “As much as I respect you,” he said slowly, “I still underestimated you.”