Taymar adjusted her pillow and stared at the shadows the floor lights cast on the low ceiling. What was Rook thinking? Did she know what had happened? Surely somebody would tell her. Taymar thought of her sarokk and smiled. Rook would take care of her, of that Taymar was certain. Assuming she made it home. Sarokks were clever. She would make it. The memory of her poking her little blue head up over the couch was so vivid she could almost smell the light musk the creature left behind. Her home on Daryus hadn’t been much larger than the room she was in now, but it had been hers and that made all the difference.
“I’m sorry,” Nevvis said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “This wasn’t my first choice.”
“Yeah,” Taymar said. “Mine, either.”
Nevvis shifted his hand so his fingers slid closer to her neck, but didn’t respond.
“What will happen to me when we get back to Drani?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug.
“Sakuritu?”
He didn’t answer right away. His body tensed at her question, but, as usual, his mind was as silent as a dinisolate field. “Maybe,” he said finally. “Probably.”
Now it was Taymar’s turn to be silent. Her mind hit full panic, and only the pressure of Nevvis’s hand on her abdomen and his mind on hers kept her from jumping out of the bed. she sent, unable to swallow the terror in her throat enough to speak.
“Save that trouble for another day,” he said, working his calming magic on her mind. “We have enough to deal with right now. Just go to sleep. You’re exhausted. You need sleep. We both do. Shansu, Tay. Shansu.”
Shansu. The closest universal translation to that was peace. Yeah. Right. Easy for him to say. Despite her efforts to push him out, his calming presence chased away the panic and left her fully depleted. His hand on her shoulder was heavy and somehow comforting, and then it wasn’t there at all as sleep consumed her.
Chapter 13 – Attack
It was his bladder that finally brought Nevvis back to the world of the living. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a vague memory of Tay waking him up to relieve herself. He hadn’t been that smart, and now he wondered if he would make it.
Slipping from the bed so as not to wake Taymar, Nevvis hurried to the washroom. When he finished, he pulled on the midnight blue tunic and black pants he had worn the night before and headed for the converter, stomach growling. Whatever that was he ate last hadn’t stayed with him for very long.
After a few clicks and what sounded suspiciously like a growl, the converter spat out a bowl of something that looked terrifyingly un-foodlike, and a glass of hot tea. The rich scent of freshly-cut leaves drifted up out of the bowl. It was a nice compliment to the sweet, fruity smell of the tea. Not the sort of thing he would expect from breakfast, but food was food, so he took it over to the small table and dug in.
Since Tay was sleeping, he allowed his mind to wonder while he ate. What exactly had happened in that containment room? He still couldn’t sort it out. She had blocked his shakiu. There was no other explanation for it. But how was that even possible? How had she managed it?
He reviewed the fight in his head again, more carefully this time since he didn’t have to shield from Taymar. The dinisolate field dropped. He connected with her shaki, but didn’t tap it, hoping to keep her from retaliating against Ranealla. And then, suddenly, her shaki wasn’t there. She somehow had it blocked. And he suspected had it not been for her shock when her knife missed, which it shouldn’t have, he would have never made it through her shield. The real question was, what else could she do?
Nevvis stabbed at his food and shoved another bite in his mouth. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t home. He wished he could have just left her on Daryus. That’s what she deserved: to be left alone. But with a spy on Drani, a real spy this time, he had to have a way to get to Jalkean, and Taymar was it. Assuming Jalkean wasn’t really working with the Shreet. Nevvis pushed away the bowl and picked up the steaming glass by one of its two handles. The tea was good. Not too sweet, but just enough to counteract the bitterness. Jalkean couldn’t be a Shreet spy. He was loyal to Drani. He was also loyal to Taymar, which was probably why he had kept the real date of the planned raid a secret. Jalkean was probably trying to sneak Tay out, not knowing that Nevvis had been planning the same thing. And he’d almost done it, too. Almost. Even so, the fact that he had kept that secret, even from Nevvis, made his gut twist. If he was wrong about Jalkean, not even Nevvis would be able to save him. But if he couldn’t trust Jalkean, who could he trust? Nevvis knew the answer already. No one. Certainly nobody on the Regal.
Captain McCauffer seemed sincere enough, but he was hiding something. He wasn’t hiding his deep hostility of Drani, of that much Nevvis was certain. But the captain did have an espionage problem of his own. Nevvis hadn’t had enough time to suss out who it was. For a non-telepath, Captain McCauffer did a decent job of shielding. But, he would get to that today, now that he was off that rancid-smelling death trap Lorelis had arranged for him. Had the man been trying to kill him? As improbable as it was, the idea wasn’t off the table. And whether he had meant to or not, Lorelis had very nearly succeeded.
Nevvis shifted back in his seat and breathed in the sweet aroma of the tea. Captain McCauffer’s spy was most likely Ranealla, which would be unfortunate. Telepathic spies were the worst kind, but telepathic spies whose telepathic abilities were essentially unknown could do some real damage. Besides that, she was breathtaking. Nevvis knew beauty. On Drani he had no shortage of beautiful women, but there was something different about Ranealla. Something…exotic. He didn’t want to have to kill her. Suddenly all of the work he thought he was sneaking away from back home didn’t seem so ponderous.
Nevvis knew the instant Taymar awoke. He felt her watching him. Although she was doing an admirable job of shielding, she was still sleepy and her thoughts may as well have been spoken. She was thinking about him. Evaluating him. She did that often, usually looking for weaknesses. But this time, she was comparing him to somebody else. When a vision of a short, stubby Daryan flashed through her mind, colored with distaste, he had to ask. “What are you thinking about over there, Tay?”
“If I wanted you to know, you wouldn’t be asking that question, now would you?”
Tossing back his tea, Nevvis turned to face her, but Taymar rolled over, putting her back to him, and pulled the blanket up over her. “Glad to see you’re feeling better,” he said, standing and gathering his dishes. “I’m going to go try to find you some clothes and meet with the captain. Just stay here. The computer will notify me if the door opens, so don’t try to recruit unsuspecting staff into any crazy plans you may dream up. There’s a reading board in the closet, and I think I saw one of those drawing tablets like you use at home.”
She ignored him.
He walked over to the bed and put his hand on her shoulder. To her credit, she didn’t even flinch. “Stay out of trouble,” he said, before grabbing his laser key. “I mean that.”
The general idea of what he could do with himself and his directions washed over him as Taymar spat the idea out of her thoughts. He smiled. At least some things about her didn’t change.
###
Taymar listened to the door slide closed behind Nevvis, and then drifted slowly back to sleep. She was in no hurry to get up. After all, what was there to do? The field on the door wouldn’t stop her if she set her mind to getting out of the room. With some effort, she could probably figure out a way through the wall. They weren’t protected. But with her luck, that way out would end with her getting sucked into space. Besides, where would she go if she did manage to get out? It was a fair bet alarms would go off if she tried melting the wall.
Her stomach growled. She pulled the blanket tighter and ignored it. Just as sleep was coming to meet her, the growling started up again. “Fine!” she said, tossing back the blanket. “Fine. Fine. Fine.”
Moving in slow increments, she sat up and dropped
her sore legs over the edge of the bed. They weren’t all that was sore. The actual act of moving proved to be quite an undertaking. Taymar gimped through her first few steps, each a little more painful than the one before. By the time she made it to the converter, she had at least managed to stand fully upright, but just pushing the selection buttons on the machine made her sore arm muscles protest.
While the converter worked out how to make something edible (she hoped) using her selections, Taymar hobbled over to the washroom to manage her morning routine. The converter was on its third cycle of beeps by the time she finished and rescued the bowl of something tan and mushy with little blue balls wallowing in the gooey mess. Once again, she had chosen poorly.
Taymar ate what she could gag down and finally gave up. Gathering her still partly full bowl, she stood to return it to the converter, but before she could take a step, the ship jumped out from under her. The bowl’s contents crashed against the wall behind the table and slid down in offensive clumps. Taymar hit the floor as the ship jumped again and tilted. Two of the chairs toppled and slid toward her, but she teked them to a stop before they did any damage.
Trying to balance against the slope, Taymar pushed herself up, ignoring her protesting muscles. The ship suddenly leveled out and Taymar caught herself on the table as she was thrown forward. Having all of the furniture permanently secured to the floor made all kinds of sense now.
A light flashed in the small window. Holding on to the table, Taymar edged her way around to the window side and peeked out. They had stopped tunneling, but other than stars and the soul-eating black of space, there wasn’t anything to see.
The ship leaped again and tilted door-side up this time. One of the chairs crashed into the washroom wall, and another clipped her leg as it passed and wedged itself against the partition. Taymar clung to the table, but when the ship bucked again, she lost her grip and slammed into the overturned chair. Her head thumped against the seat. One of the legs cracked under her weight, and she twisted to make sure it didn’t sink into her side. Blood streamed over her right eye. When the ship corrected itself for the second time, she made a run for the bed. At least it was in a nook and offered some protection.
She grabbed the blanket and pushed it against the gash above her eye as she wedged herself into a corner. Something exploded in a flash of light out the window, and the ship hopped sideways in response. Taymar watched in horror as a massive chunk of debris sailed toward the small portal. It was going to crash into the ship. Into the window. Surely it wouldn’t break it. She braced herself against the nook wall and considered trying to teke it to a stop, but would that even work? Would her telekinesis work in space? She was willing to give it a try, but the chunk of metal collided with an invisible field and bounced away just before it hit.
The ship lurched forward, or what she imagined was forward, and a flash of light came through the window, brightening up the room. Taymar buried her face behind her arm, ready for the explosion, but nothing happened. When she dared to look up, she saw that, once again, they were tunneling. Blue, green, red, and yellow streaks filled the small window, but they didn’t stay for long. As quickly as they had begun, the streaks disappeared and the Regal drifted to a stop in space.
After several minutes passed with no movement, Taymar ripped apart a piece of the blanket and ventured off the bed. She paused to listen. Although she hadn’t noticed the hum of the ship before, its absence now was concerning. The lights flicked off, and darkness swallowed the room but for the pricks of light from the stars in the window. She held stone still, not sure what to do next. Maybe she should start melting the wall after all.
Then, like a transporter building up power, the whirring sound of the ship started up again. The lights blinked once and flicked on, though at a much dimmer setting. Still pressing the cloth against the cut over her eye, she ventured over to the window and peered out. The only thing that greeted her was dark space and the teasing light of distant suns.
A quick check over the door let her know the dinisolate field activator had survived the ordeal, of course, but at least one of the three chairs hadn’t fared as well. She teked it over near the table, where the other one lay wedged against the wall and rounded the partition. The third chair seemed mostly unscathed, but the little lights on the converter were completely dark. Taymar pushed a few spots on the smooth glass that had offered up the selection menu, but nothing happened. It was offline. Intentionally, or because of damage to the ship, she couldn’t guess. She teked the chair and left it hovering behind her as she tried to swipe the washroom door open. Like the converter, it ignored her.
A noise by the main door broke the silence, and she turned as Nevvis walked through the door. Before he had more than two steps inside the room, he spun and ducked back out into the hallway behind the wall. Taymar watched in confusion as he poked his head around the corner and then jerked it back again. After a couple more head ducks, each lasting longer than the last, he stepped fully into the room and cocked his head.
“What?” Taymar asked as the door slid closed behind Nevvis’s back.
“Why are you holding that chair in the air like that?”
Taymar looked over her shoulder at the chair still hovering beside her, and grinned. Watching Nevvis’s duck and cover would have been even more fun if she had meant to scare him, but, as it was, she would take the win. Without answering him, she sent the chair over to the table and set it back on its feet. “What happened?”
“We were attacked.” Nevvis started to right the second chair, but noticed the broken leg and set it on its side against the wall instead. “The ship is damaged, and, from what I can understand, we are stranded. Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”
“Well, since I am bleeding, a person of average intelligence could figure out that I’m not okay. Something almost crashed through the window. Was that part of our ship?”
Nevvis glanced over at the window. “No. The Shreet destroyed the ship we were trying to intercept. I don’t think anything can crash through that window. There are shields to protect it.”
Well, that explained a lot. Taymar joined Nevvis looking out into the darkness, not at all sure what she hoped to see, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the moment. “Will my teke work in space?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Nevvis said after a thoughtful pause. “It seems like it should, but I don’t actually know. We need your teke right now, though, to repair the ship. Are you willing?”
Taymar turned to Nevvis and stared. She couldn’t remember a single time when he had asked her to use her telekinesis to help him. Or asked if she was willing, for that matter.
“This is serious, Tay,” Nevvis said when she didn’t respond. “People have already died. You can help, but you will need to let me in to guide you. No shielding at all. Are you willing to let me use your telekinesis or not?”
“Why do you have to use it? I can use it myself. They can show me what needs to be done and I can do it.”
“Because you have no knowledge base. I do. Messing up on a spaceship has some rather large consequences. It will go much better if you just let me in. I need an answer.”
He had a point. Taymar considered her options. Surely she could get some leverage out of this, but what should she ask for?
Nevvis threw up his hands. “You are too much,” he said, reading her intent before she could give it voice. “Okay, fine. If you let me in, no shielding. I will take you to the atrium when we are finished, assuming we live long enough to get finished while you negotiate with people’s lives.”
Taymar scowled at his tone, but again didn’t get the chance to ask what an atrium was before Nevvis read her thoughts and volunteered the information, his total exasperation obvious. “This ship has a small ecosystem at its center that helps with filtration and environmental control. Yes or no?”
His unchecked telepathy was a little unnerving. Was he always able to read her every thought that fast, or was she just being unus
ually open? “Yes,” she said as his brow started to furl up again.
He bit back whatever hostile thing he was about to say and pulled his laser key from his pocket.
“But, I don’t know what makes you assume you can use my telekinesis in the first place. It’s not as easy as I make it look,” she said as he clicked off the dinisolate field.
He turned and faced her, head cocked in a typical Nevvis mannerism. “I’ll work it out.” He pointed at her forehead. “Let me see the cut.”
“It’ll be fine once the bleeding stops,” Taymar said, pulling the bloody rag away. A tiny stream of blood dripped from the wound. She started to put the bit of blanket back over it, but Nevvis stopped her. His invasion into her thoughts was overwhelming, and without even thinking she tried to push him away, both mentally and physically.
“You agreed,” he said. “Full cooperation.”
Surprised, she dropped her shielding, inadequate though it was, and allowed him full access to her mind. He took the rag out of her hand and dabbed at the blood still trickling off her forehead. There was a slight tug on her skin and the feeling of tiny bugs crawling over the cut. She reached up to rub, but he pushed her hand away. The prickling continued, interrupted only by the occasional dabbing. When he was finally satisfied, Nevvis handed Taymar the rag and smiled. “I think I can manage,” he said. “Let’s go.”
When Taymar didn’t move, he turned around. She gestured to her bare legs and feet.
“Oh.” Nevvis disappeared through the door and returned before it could slide closed with a small stack of clothing.
Taymar took the clothes and smiled. “So scared of a little chair.”
Nevvis nodded his head toward the washroom. “Go change. Hurry.”
Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1) Page 20