Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1)

by Melonie Purcell

  He stood there a second more before giving her a tiny nod and stalking away. With great satisfaction, Taymar noticed that his spots hadn’t faded back to normal.

  She took the opportunity to find a new corner to lose herself in. Having people around who could identify her by sight wouldn’t work. Not if she was going to get herself off the ship. And that’s precisely what was going to happen. One way or another, she wasn’t going back to Drani.

  She hadn’t exactly lied to the Arleles, but she hadn’t told the whole truth, either. The Alliance ship was shuttling them over, and they were having a hard time of it, but housing all of the Drani citizens wasn’t their only problem. Figuring out how to salvage the Shreet vessel with all of its advanced technology was proving to be a bigger problem. And apparently Shreet help was on its way. So was another Alliance ship. Wherever they were it was about to get interesting, and she had no intention of staying around to find out how it ended. Fortunately, the Alliance was starting the process in her room.

  When the doors finally opened and the people Taymar assumed belonged to the Alliance walked in, the thin control the Dran and Arleles had worked to establish began falling apart almost immediately. The Alliance people, clothed from head to toe in an elaborate gray uniform that looked as if it could withstand a reactor explosion, tried to take charge of the room. Within seconds, mayhem descended.

  While the Dran tried to convince the Alliance’s people to let them handle organizing the group and the Arleles in charge tried to keep from killing the Arleles who wanted to be in charge, Taymar slipped over to the door and waited.

  Finally, an Alliance commander walked in and conferred with the small mixed group from Drani. She wore the same armored uniform, but no helmet. Her short black hair stuck up where the helmet had been, though. Other than large eyes and the ears that stuck out of the side of her head, the woman looked remarkably Dran-like.

  They debated briefly, but the woman didn’t put up much of a fight. The line of bodies against the near wall convinced her easily enough that she needed to leave the room to the Dran. Once that was decided, she turned to her own people and started snapping out orders. Her urgency washed over Taymar, and she had to shield to keep from drawing attention from any nearby Dran.

  The first few groups to leave were made up of the critically injured and a couple of key Dran. Taymar waited. Everything depended on who was on her shuttle with her. What they were trying to do was form groups with a balanced Dran to Arlele ratio so as not to leave too many unsupervised Arleles on the ship, on the shuttles, or on the Alliance ship during the transfer period. That job wasn’t as easy as just matching one Arlele to one Dran. Not every Arlele needed supervising, and not every Dran was up to the task.

  When a group came by that already had two volatile Arleles in it plus two injured, Taymar jumped in.

  “What are you doing?” asked the Dran in charge of the group.

  Taymar sent, keeping her eyes away from the Arleles. The last thing she needed was her spots giving her away.

  The Dran’s relief rolled off him. “A telepath. Perfect. This is now your group.”

  Taymar fell in close to the Dran and kept her eyes diverted, consistent with the less dominant telepathic Arleles. Each Arlele teked one of the injured along as they went, but their spots ran dark and their tempers short.

  They followed a uniformed Alliance guard down the hall to a deck shuttle. Nobody spoke. The Dran stayed between the two Arleles, and Taymar kept to the back, watching everything but the people in front of her. The walls were rough and concave, giving the feeling of walking in a tunnel, but the well-padded floor absorbed the sound. Fortunately, the trip was short. The shuttle let them out on a platform where pilots ran around small tube-shaped ships like little birds building a nest. This is where she needed to be.

  Some of the shuttles were huge, flat circles—capable of carrying fifty or more people from the looks of them—but most were small black tubes with angular fronts and rounded backs. Their doors slid open along the sides, and the seats for the six passengers barely offered enough room for a person to sit without bumping the next seat.

  The Dran carefully chose the seating for his group, placing one Arlele in front of him and one behind. After some painful moaning, each of the injured passengers, one Dran and one Arlele, was strapped in beside the two telekinetics, and Taymar finally took her seat next to the Dran and nearest to the door. The tiny compartment wreaked of hostility and weakness, and she pulled her hair around to hide the spots she knew were coloring along her neck. Her relief at being closest to the door slipped through her shield. Fortunately, the Dran misunderstood her reason.

 

  She didn’t have to color her thoughts for that one.

 

  The door slid shut and another hatch in front clicked open. Their pilot climbed in and pulled the door closed. Without a word, he started tapping a code into the viewer. The lights dimmed to a dull blue, and the shuttle shifted beneath them. Since it offered no windows, not even in the front, they couldn’t see where they were. Taymar lost no time delving into the pilot’s mind to watch the viewer as they cleared the ship.

  Trying to pull information from the pilot’s mind with the constant scrutiny of the Dran turned out to be harder than she had hoped. The more she snooped, the more concerned the Dran became. Knowledge about technology was forbidden to Arleles, and the Dran’s suspicion about Taymar’s activities was becoming apparent. She needed a distraction, and the Arleles weren’t giving her the one she had planned on.

  With a small twinge of regret, Taymar leaned toward the Dran as much as the seat restraints would allow. “It doesn’t seem like we could have enough air in this tiny space to support all of us for long, does it?”

  That the Dran was wishing she had sent that little concern rather than spoken it was obvious enough from his thoughts. The two Arleles’s anxiety level peaked almost instantly, and the Dran turned his attention to them. Taymar took the momentary break to wrap her mind around the still bleeding wound of the Dran in front of her, and split it back open. Blood spurted into the air. The smell of it mixed with the sticky-sweet scent of the injured Dran’s fear, and permeated the small compartment.

  As the two Arleles continued to spike, the acrid scent of fear began rolling off the Dran sitting next to her, and Taymar had to focus on the restraint straps to remember her goal. Just to be sure the man didn’t suspect she was the dual-talent, Taymar leaned forward to try to help.

  “Just sit back. I’ve got this.” The Dran tried to reach over the seat, but his restraints kept him firmly in place. He turned to the Arlele in the front seat. “What happened? Can you stop the bleeding? I need you to focus. Dicci! Focus!”

  As the two of them tried to save the woman’s life, Taymar did as she was told, sat back, and raked the pilot’s mind as fast as she could. By the time they landed a few moments later, she had everything she was going to get from the man except the answer to her original question. How much air did the little shuttle really have?

  Too soon, the door beside her slid open and the seat restraints released. She jumped out and cleared the way for the Dran and Arlele, who were still working to save the bleeding woman. A medical team met them in the huge bay and a sufficient amount of chaos ensued, allowing Taymar to slip unseen around behind the shuttle. The Dran didn’t even look back. Being a harmless telepath had its benefits.

  What she wanted was one of those gray uniforms, but they weren’t exactly hanging around the walls on hooks. Taymar ducked behind a piece of machinery anchored to the floor, while a team of three Alliance people scurried around the shuttle with canisters and scanners and then hurried away to some other task. The question was where was the pilot? A quick pass for his thought patterns turned up nothing, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. />
  Taymar slipped up the side of the shuttle. The small hatch over the pilot’s seat still stood open. That had to be good, right? If the pilot was sitting there ready to launch, wouldn’t the hatch be closed? Maybe he had made a dash for the waste room. Pilots had to eliminate, right? She hoped for the best, stuck her foot in the hole on the side of the shuttle, pulled herself up, and peered over the edge—into an empty seat. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

  Without another second’s delay, she jumped into the vacant seat and started tapping in codes. The cabin still reeked of blood and fear. Her heart raced a mile a minute, and when the side door slid shut she nearly jumped out of her spots. She couldn’t believe it when the seat restraints latched down and the shuttle lifted off the floor, ready to launch. Now the question occurred to her, ready to launch where?

  Apparently operating in a preset pattern, the shuttle shot out of the Alliance ship and headed back for the surrendered Shreet vessel.

  “No! No! No!” Taymar tapped just about every image on the viewer the pilot had used until a voice interface finally screamed into the silence. “Input new destination.”

  Well, that didn’t help. She didn’t know where she was; how could she possibly input the coordinates? Taymar thought of her model tree house back at Nevvis’s. “Travok. Take me to Travok.”

  “Destination unobtainable with current shuttle specifications. Input new destination.”

  She glanced over at the viewer showing the shuttle’s location in relation to the two ships. Landing on that Shreet ship would not be good. In more ways than she could imagine, it would not be good. In fact, it would probably be the worst thing that she had ever done, and given her history, that was saying a lot. “Identify the nearest inhabited planets.”

  “Ikor I. Ikor II. Daryus. Par Tun Hera. Par….”

  “Ikor I. Destination Ikor I.”

  “Destination locked. Course changes calculated. Course laid in.”

  Taymar watched the viewer as the two ships veered away. She had done it. The shuttle was heading off into space. Or so she thought.

  “Shuttle Three, correct course. You have altered from the designated flight plan.”

  Her heart stopped beating right there in the seat. She was sure of it. Taymar held her breath, hoping somehow it would help. It didn’t.

  “Shuttle Three, correct course. I repeat. Correct course. You have veered from the flight plan. Correct course immediately.”

  “This is where I die…probably…most likely.” She scrambled for something from the pilot’s thoughts that would help her, but nothing connected. Her panic didn’t help. “Definitely. Computer, terminate the connection with that Alliance ship.”

  “Confirm request to override Parent ship controls.”

  “Yes. Confirm. Override. Something. Anything.”

  “Input authorization code for requested override.”

  “Shuttle Three, return to the ship immediately, or you will be fired upon. I repeat…”

  Taymar slid the volume control off. “I. Am. Going. To. Die!” A code. The pilot had to have a code. A series of symbols flashed into her mind, but she had no idea what they were associated with. At this point, she didn’t care. She slid the input panel screen across the viewer and entered the symbols as they appeared in her head. For a moment, nothing happened.

  “Authorization accepted. Parent controls terminated.”

  “Then go! As fast as we can, go!”

  “Achieving jump velocity will utilize eighty percent of available fuel. Do you still wish to activate tunnel drives?”

  “Holy Creator of all that is great and mighty. Just go!”

  A panel flashed on the wall. It looked like the parent ship was trying to reestablish control of the shuttle. They didn’t want to blow up one of their babies if they didn’t have to. At the very back of the ship, a low whine was starting to build.

  “Prepare for jump.”

  The panel went dark, and an ugly thought slipped through Taymar’s mind. They were still connected to the parent ship when she laid in the course to Ikor whatever. They knew where she was going. “Change course for Daryus, and jump.”

  “Destination locked. Course changes calculated. Course laid in. Jumping.”

  Taymar’s navel wrapped around her spine.

  Chapter 5 – Lost

  Nevvis sat in his secured office, pounding away at the volumes of requests pouring into his pending file. For every High Council concern he managed to clear, three more dropped in. He stretched his fingers, mostly to keep them from falling off, and slid the next crisis onto the viewer.

  “Oh, good. Another section of Newete in lockdown with no water.” Three short beeps brought his attention around to a different viewer. “Could this day get any worse?” Lorelis was stepping off the trempad.

  Of all twelve other members of the Council, Lorelis most adamantly opposed the treaty with the Alliance. Actually, Lorelis most adamantly opposed everything, especially if Nevvis advocated for it. Unfortunately, he was the second most powerful person on the Council, and probably the most influential. His age and experience made him a formidable opponent. His talent made him dangerous. Nevvis fortified his mental shield, fixed his expression of indifference firmly in place, and pretended not to be annoyed when Lorelis scanned himself into the office without an invitation and leaned against the desk.

  “Not that I’m unhappy to see you, Lorelis, but shouldn’t you be at home sorting through your share of these Council requests?”

  The man scanned the viewer and shrugged. His casual manner always seemed in direct contrast to the intelligence behind his pale blue eyes. “When you didn’t answer my com, I thought I should drop by in person and make sure you got the news.”

  “Your com wasn’t urgent. These requests are.”

  “That may be, but my com was from me. These requests are not. You should have answered.”

  Nevvis tapped out an authorization to deploy a stabilization team to the target area, then turned his full attention to Lorelis. “What is it? I already heard that Jalkean has not yet been located.”

  “True. I note your lack of surprise. That, however, is not the news. Your Arlele is missing.”

  “Of course she’s missing. She was taken in the raid. And she’s not my Arlele.”

  “Mmhm.” Lorelis picked up a memory stick and flipped it between his fingers as he spoke. His smirk made Nevvis want to shove the stick up his nose, but he kept those emotions well hidden behind his shielded mind. He had learned long ago that Lorelis’s careless manner and unkempt appearance only served to throw people off. Under that bush of black hair was a mind that seized any weakness.

  “Lorelis. What did you come here to tell me? I have work to do. You have work to do.”

  “Your Arlele is not on the ship, either ship. She is missing.”

  “Your information is wrong. The last report I have says a dual-talent Arlele worked with a Dran to destroy the core of the Shreet ship. Unless we have another dual-talent Arlele, which would be horrifically bad, Taymar was on that ship.”

  “I have to agree. That would, indeed, be horrifically bad. But, that’s not the case. Your Arlele was on the ship, but she isn’t anymore. It seems she stole a shuttle and has disappeared.”

  Nevvis turned his chair fully around. “What? She can’t fly a shuttle. She’s never even been on a shuttle. Tell me this is one of your twisted jokes.”

  “And this time your complete shock is noted. Apparently she not only flew a shuttle, but she also disabled the tracking beacon and flew that shuttle right on out of the Alliance ship’s grid.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “They have no idea.”

  For a long moment, Nevvis only stared. He could no more break through Lorelis’s mental shield than Lorelis could break through his, but he was hoping to see something that would give this away as a joke. Lorelis had a strange sense of humor. However, he wasn’t smiling. “You made this up.”

&
nbsp; “Some things aren’t funny.”

  “It’s not like she can hurt us, but still. How could she have managed to steal a shuttle?”

  “I disagree. She can hurt us. But more than that, she can help us and you need to go find her.”

  “How?”

  “How you find her is up to you. I suspect you have the means.”

  Nevvis only cocked his head, so Lorelis continued. “How she can hurt us, other than the obvious threat of stirring up the Arlele population with rumors, is with what she knows. She is hostile to Drani and would turn on us in a heartbeat. She has a band, and they have the technology to use it against us. Imagine, if you can, the carnage should the Shreet gain control of our banding system.”

  “I try not to. But that threat isn’t specific to Taymar.”

  “No, it isn’t, but with her abilities, they would have a much easier time of it.”

  “You are overestimating Taymar’s knowledge base. Even if she wanted to hurt us, I can’t imagine that she knows enough to do any real damage.”

  “Stretch your mind just a little bit. We are not the only race of telepaths out there. With well-placed questions, even an empath could learn too much about our technology, our society, our limitations, our weaknesses. And if an emp could be dangerous, a telepath could learn much more.” Lorelis watched the card dance around his fingers as he flipped it. “Think about it. The Shreet raided every Newete Council member’s home. They were obviously hoping to collect Council members when they hit, perhaps to achieve a similar goal. To acquire knowledge. I would say it was just bad luck that she was there instead of you. Or good planning on your part; I haven’t decided which.”

  Outrage flooded Nevvis’s thoughts. Only years of discipline kept his emotions in check as Nevvis watched Lorelis cataloging every detail of the conversation. “Are you honestly suggesting that I am the traitor within the Council? You think I gave the Shreet the names and locations of our Newete Council members?”

  The stick paused its flipping. “Someone did. And someone let them through our shields, too.”