Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1)

by Melonie Purcell

  With each dreaded step down the bright corridor, Taymar’s tension mounted. She looked constantly for another outside portal, without success. Each time the flashing blue light along the corridor wall led them toward a new turn, her heart paused to see if that bend would lead to the demise of her plan. For a brief moment, Taymar even considered getting sick to avoid going to the nav-deck, but she knew Nevvis would never be fooled, so she didn’t bother.

  “What is your problem?” Nevvis demanded as they stepped onto the deck shuttle. He was looking down at her with such suspicion in his eyes that for a moment she wondered if she had let her thoughts escape her already poor control.

  “The list is long. Are you sure you have time?”

  Nevvis wasn’t satisfied with her flippant remark. “I’m serious,” he said. “You’re as jumpy as a hom in a net.”

  “Well, you’re always hovering over me,” she accused, hoping her annoyance would cover her anxiety. “You’re always feeling around in my mind. You’d be jumpy too if you never got any privacy.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no privacy?’” The shuttle door slid open, and as they stepped out onto the nav-deck, Nevvis whispered to her, “You’ve had five months of privacy. How much more privacy do you want?”

  Taymar didn’t answer; she didn’t have time. The instant they stepped onto the navigation deck, she watched her plan unravel before her eyes.

  Nevvis and Sean exchanged greetings, but only briefly. It was more than obvious there was a major problem occupying the energy of everyone in navigation. Nevvis glanced at the viewer on one wall and then inquired as to why they had stopped tunneling. Taymar tried desperately to melt into the wall. She knew the answer already and didn’t want to be in navigation when Nevvis heard Sean’s reply. But, before he could give it, Daniil stepped off of another shuttle, paying no heed to Nevvis or Taymar.

  “Sir, the problem is with the brakeal in the power-bay. Somehow it is randomly decrystallizing at an accelerated rate. If we don’t stop it, the brakeal will fully erupt, taking most of the p-bay with it.”

  The captain’s face contorted into a combination of confusion, anger, and total disbelief. “How the bloody hell does brakeal start reorganizing itself?” he asked, not speaking to anyone in particular. “How long before the reaction chamber can be dismantled and the ruddy block of brakeal removed from the ship?” His voice was at once calm and authoritative. Watching him now, it was easy to see how he could command such a large ship so effectively. Every eye was on him. Had Sean given the order to remove all oxygen from the nav-deck, it would have been followed without questions.

  “The engineers are working as fast as they can, but I doubt they’ll make it,” Daniil said. “If we transfer the entire reaction chamber off, we will be as good as captured if that Shreet ship finds us.”

  “And if we don’t, we’ll be dead for sure, with only very small bits left to find,” Sean countered, turning to his computer panel. “Transport,” he called. When a voice answered, he gave his order. “Prepare to transfer the main reactor chamber as far from the ship as you can on my command.”

  “Yes, sir,” the voice answered.

  Sean turned to his crew. “I’m after some suggestions, if they’re fast ones. Any idea what the devil laid a bloody curse on our brakeal? Or better yet, how to undo it?” Sean’s face held no humor despite his light words.

  Nevvis had been standing toward the front of the room, staring hard at Taymar from the moment Daniil had made her announcement. His yellow eyes were blazing with fury, and his icy voice sent chills racing down her spine when he spoke. “Taymar. Make it stop.”

  But she had come too far to give up now. She knew this was her one chance, and she wasn’t about to go quietly. Bracing herself for the worst, Taymar made a leap for the deck shuttle that Daniil was still standing in front of. She managed to duck behind the woman, escaping Nevvis’s direct line of vision before his mental connection became paralyzing. He did tag her, but his contact was weak and the impact bearable. He didn’t have to see her in order to access her psy-receptor, but it helped, and breaking his line of sight had offered her a momentary reprieve.

  Unfortunately, Daniil’s reaction was nearly as fast as Nevvis’s. The woman spun around and grabbed for Taymar’s arm just as she was diving for the barely-open deck shuttle. Using mind and muscle, Taymar shoved Daniil’s arm out of the way and slapped her hand over the sensor panel just as Nevvis, free of the visual obstruction, made contact with her shaki again. In a rush of blinding pain, Taymar collapsed to the floor of the deck shuttle. The doors blurred in front of her, and she struggled against the blackness that called her as she watched them slide together, closing out the golden-eyed man running toward her.

  “Shuttle bay,” Taymar called, shaking off the impact of Nevvis’s attack. “Take me to where the shuttles dock.” She didn’t feel the small room shift into motion, but she knew from the lights that she was sailing toward her destination. She was also fairly certain Nevvis would be headed for the same place.

  By the time the deck shuttle doors slid open again, Taymar had mostly recovered. Thankful that the nav-deck had a direct transport to the shuttle bay, she jumped into the vacant room and faced the doors already sliding closed. On one hand, she didn’t want to close off her only means of leaving this room, but she certainly didn’t want to face the man who would be coming through them when they opened again. Not entirely confident with her decision, Taymar locked onto the doors and warped them just enough to prevent them from opening. She hoped that if she had to she could telekinetically push them back into place, though she doubted it would actually work if it came to it.

  Reluctant to waste any more time, Taymar ran for the first of three shuttles docked in the bay. It looked exactly like the one she had stolen to escape to Daryus, so she felt confident she was accessing the door correctly, but her efforts earned no response. It didn’t open. Confused, Taymar ran to the second shuttle. A low chime sounded from the wall, and she guessed it was Nevvis trying to get in through the warped deck shuttle doors. She held her breath for a second, but the doors didn’t give way. She had another couple of minutes. At least, she hoped she did.

  Once again, Taymar focused on the second shuttle. Like the first, the door would not open. Just as Captain Sean had promised, she would not be able to steal one of his shuttles so easily. He had locked her out. Taymar took a moment to consider her options. She didn’t dare use her TK to try opening the door, for fear of damaging the integrity of the shuttle hull. Mentally manipulating the sensor itself wasn’t an option either, since she didn’t have even a notion as to how it worked, and without a shuttle to get off the ship, she knew she was doomed. Her only other option was to wait it out and hope her other guess was right.

  Taymar had just decided to find a place to hide when the terrifying sound of huge sliding doors brought her heart to a stop. She didn’t even have to peek around the shuttle to know who was stepping off the cargo lift. She felt his rage flood the room like acid in her lungs.

  Kicking herself for not thinking of the lift in the first place, Taymar turned on her heels and bolted for a pile of storage containers on the other side of the room. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. She wasn’t concerned with anyone in the room but Nevvis, and she knew she only had a few seconds to get out of sight or he would have her. Once she was hidden, she just needed to stay hidden for a few more minutes. That was all she needed. Just a delay. She was almost there.

  She raced for the pile of crates right in front of her, but all at once fiery claws pierced through her muscles and ripped through her body. Blind with pain, Taymar collapsed forward and struggled for air. The agony Nevvis sent coursing through her body was almost more than she could stand. She was shaking so hard from the effects of his merciless attack on her psy-receptor that she could barely push herself over. When she did, she found herself staring into Nevvis’s furious amber eyes.

  “Make it stop. Now!” he spat through clenched teeth.

/>   She had never seen him so angry. In all of their time together, Nevvis had always been control incarnate, not just of himself, but of everything around him as well. But this time as she looked into his cold fury, she knew he had lost his edge. Still, she stood her ground, more than a little terrified of what he would do to her. She was supposed to have been anywhere on the ship other than in navigation when this happened, but she was determined to play out the hand anyway.

  She shook her head and waited for the pain she knew would follow, and follow it did. So sudden was the agony Nevvis sent raging through her body that Taymar screamed. The blackness of unconsciousness threatened to take her, and her stomach tried to turn inside out. Then, just as abruptly as it had begun the pain stopped, leaving her sweating and gasping for air.

  “Taymar, stop the brakeal now, and I won’t hurt you again,” Nevvis repeated, glaring down at her.

  Through her ringing ears, Taymar heard his command. But, she was not about to give up. “Give me a shuttle and let me go. Then I will,” she said, still blinking away the pain.

  Nevvis kneeled down beside her. He smelled of sweat and rage, but his voice held an unnerving quietness as he spoke. “I don’t think you understand. If you did get on a shuttle, right now I would personally blow it into dust. Besides that, you’re too far away from any planet to do anything but eventually suffocate.”

  “That’s fine,” Taymar spat. “I would rather die than go back to Drani.”

  “And take a ship full of people with you?”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” she countered, still squatting on the floor.

  Nevvis’s laugh was as wicked as his stare. “You have no idea,” he told her. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small hypospray. Taymar knew immediately that it was klonide, and began a backwards retreat.

  “I will ask you one more time,” Nevvis warned. “Stop the brakeal.”

  Still scooting backward on the floor, Taymar stared up at the injector with absolute dread. She had been ready for anything but that. Nevvis gave her only a brief moment to answer, and then stalked toward her. At his vengeful approach, Taymar’s retreat became frantic. Even the paralyzing pain he shot through her served only to slow her down. Not until her back hit one of the storage containers did she finally stop, trapped.

  Taymar pulled herself into a ball and rasped out, “Okay, okay,” hating her own weakness even as she spoke.

  Nevvis waited. Ready to pounce at any moment, he hovered over her, hypospray in hand.

  Closing her eyes, Taymar tried to concentrate on the brakeal, but she couldn’t focus. Finally, as Nevvis released his hold on her shaki, the rack of brakeal became clear in her mind. With effort, she stopped the random decrystallizing she had started in the center cylinder before it spread to the others.

  “I did it,” she whispered, cringing under Nevvis’s ominous presence.

  Nevvis crouched down in front of her. “I may let you live.” He grabbed her arm and put the hypospray against the back of her neck.

  “No!” she screamed. “I did it. I did what you told me.” She threw herself sideways and tried to jump to her feet, but pain gripped every muscle and sent her back to the floor in a heap. In the distance, she could see Captain Sean staring at her in shock. She heard the intercom tell him the brakeal had stabilized. Nevvis never blinked as he listened to the announcement, nor did he take his eyes off her. He just watched as the cold burning in her neck marked the death of all hope.

  Nevvis kept her there in a state of excruciating anguish, long enough for the thick blanket of klonide to cover up her psychic pathways. He backed up and the pain stopped. In his wake, he left her mind painted with a black sludge she could not penetrate.

  Defeated, Taymar dropped her head sideways against the crate. She buried her hands in her hair, hid her face, and waited for the punishment she knew was next.

  Rigid with rage, Nevvis stood with his back to her and addressed Sean. “Captain, would you have a security team escort her to my cabin? I think she will be safer that way.”

  Sean nodded and motioned to the security team that waited near the door as Nevvis turned back to Taymar, still visibly livid. Sparing her nothing, he reached down and jerked her to her feet. Then, digging again into his pocket, Nevvis pulled out his laser key. Taymar didn’t fight as he turned her so her back was toward him and grabbed her arms. She never even flinched when the eerie cold of the confinement band encircled her wrist. The klonide had stolen her psy-abilities, and with it her fight.

  “You will probably need to send two people with her,” Nevvis began, but when his eyes fell on the hulking form of the furry security man she had shot on Daryus, he added, “or one of him.”

  Sean, Nevvis, and even the furry man smiled. “If you can spare the manpower, someone needs to stay with her until I get there. If not, I will be there in a few minutes. I just need a little time to calm down.”

  The hulking security officer reached for Taymar’s arm. “I will stay,” he announced, ushering the lifeless shell from the room.

  Chapter 17 – Kellin

  YittBrae adjusted his belt once more, drew in a long deep breath, and paused, hand halfway to the sensor. He glanced over his shoulder at Urvo, his long skins flipping sideways at the gesture. “UrvoDii, I want you here to witness this interaction, but I don’t want the Root to realize how much you know. I don’t want them to even know you exist, for your own protection as much as mine. Do you understand?”

  Urvo nodded and hoped he hadn’t flashed. “I do, sir. I understand completely.”

  Satisfied, YittBrae swiped the door and entered the com-chamber. With practiced moves, he pulled the control panel forward, tapped in the code, and stood back as the room darkened. The holo that filled the space was an obvious depiction of a control room from home. Dark panels covered the bunker walls, shielding the inhabitants from the violence that too often filled the cities. At the back was a vid-screen shaped to resemble a window that looked out over the Kiskqui Mountains, the sky deep red with the setting sun…the dying sun. The three Shreet at the table looked up as a holo of the brae no doubt filled their screens. Urvo slipped a little closer to the wall to make certain he didn’t appear in the feed. For him to continue being Yittbrae’s eyes and ears, he had to continue to not exist. In fact, he was pretty sure he had been a casualty on one of the early raid reports that went back to the Root.

  “Yitt. You are early. The Vice Commander has yet to arrive,” said the oldest of the Shreet. Long, pale-blue braids dangled loosely down her back, and although Urvo couldn’t see them, he was sure that even the ends were without hair. The Royal Commander was an impressive figure; she had to be to command the entire Shreet fleet. But her arrogance was going to cost her this world. At least, Urvo hoped it would.

  “Forgive me, Commander. The third ring of our defensive shield is coming online today. I need to assist with the initializing process. I am sure you understand.”

  “I do not. You are supposed to be commanding a space station advanced enough to eventually serve as the way station for our fleet coming through the flux. Why are you attending to menial tasks such as initializing your shields? I fear you do not have the skin for the role I have given you. There have been too many losses of late. And too little progress.” The commander glanced over at the male to her right. Tisku, the real heir to the throne, despite the Vice Commander’s title. Everyone knew that when Commander Chiskiti resigned, or, more likely, was assassinated, it would be Tisku who would assume command. Probably even the Vice Commander was resigned to that fact.

  Tisku leaned forward, his mottled yellowing orange skin betraying his upbringing in the klav mines. “Yittbrae, did you receive our convoy?”

  A flash of panic washed over Urvo as he watched, sure Yittbrae would glance over at him and betray his anonymity, but the brae proved that he had enough skin to manage the station, and more, with his smooth response. “I assure you, commanders, that I am capable of preparing this world for our
expansion. I am aware of every detail of the operation of this ship and our mission. We have received no convoy from the Root. The last thing to pass through the flux was two of the five derits I requested. That was on rot 4565-201. We have seen nothing from the Root since. Perhaps your convoy is still waiting for clearance?”

  Tisku glanced behind him while the Royal Commander pulled up notes from the vid in front of her. After a moment of sorting, she tossed the record against the wall. “The convoy cleared rot 210, nearly ten rotations ago. I find it unlikely they would have slipped in past your notice.”

  “I assure you, they did not. Might I ask what type of convoy was it?”

  Tisku conferred with the sub-commander at the table for a moment, and then looked back at the brae. “Additional support and some key members of our security team. It seems they did not clear the flux. I find that suspicious.”

  “As do I, Commander.”

  The Royal Commander brought her icy gaze back to the brae. “It would be tempting to use the distance between us to establish control of that sector and break from the Root.”

  “It might be to some, Royal Commander, but I am sure you chose your security people carefully before sending them.” Yittbrae cocked his head a tiny bit and added, “Besides, as I have said, they could not have slipped through. We have complete control of this side of the flux. If something went wrong, it had to have been before they entered it.”

  “Our readings from this end indicate that the flux is completely stable.”

  “As do ours,” Yittbrae assured her. “Perhaps if you send additional support in the future, you should notify me so we can monitor the flux and be ready to receive your people and equipment.”

  Tisku chuckled softly. “I think your brae has more skin than you give him credit for, Royal Commander.”

  She nodded slowly, but didn’t share his smile. “Perhaps. Perhaps.” Without further comment, she reached out and collected her files from the wall, tossing them back to her vid. “Return to your duties, Yittbrae, but I want a detailed report indicating gains and losses thus far, and your exact plan to transport this fuel source you are talking about through the flux. From what I am reading, it is at the far edge of that sector. I do not see how you plan to efficiently move it such a great distance.”