“That was the reason for my request of five derits, not two.”
“Well, two is what you have, so make it work. I expect that report in the next few rots. You may have to skip some initializing ceremonies.”
“Yes, Royal Commander. Is there anything else?”
A blank holo was his answer as the commanders terminated their side of the connection. Yittbrae shut down his end; pulled in another long, slow breath; and finally turned to Urvo. “Did you know about the convoy?”
Urvo shook his head. “The flux is growing more unstable.”
“And possibly not just on our end. They will look into it more carefully now that they have realized a loss.”
“Agreed, but that doesn’t mean they will find anything. The instability could be on this end only.”
“And it doesn’t mean they won’t.” The brae turned and stared at the space that was the holo of the Royal Commander. “One thing we do know is that they suspect my intended break from the Root.”
“But they don’t know about the fuel source on Drani. That’s good. If they knew how close it is to the flux, they would be here within a rot.”
“True.” He turned and gave Urvo a hard stare. “We need to move up our plan. We need Drani now, and a reliable way to close that flux.”
Urvo nodded. “Do you want me to create the report?”
“No.” The brae headed toward the door. “You work on getting that Arlele on this ship, and make sure she is happy about it. I know what I need the reports to say. I will do them myself.”
Urvo made certain to hide his relief as he followed the brae from the room. Too many things could be wrong on those reports, and he didn’t want to be the one that brought the Root flooding through the flux.
###
No words were spoken as the furry man led Taymar down the corridors to Nevvis’s cabin. Though he stayed within reaching distance, he had released her arm as soon as they stepped through the cargo bay doors, and seemed to be keeping as much distance as possible. Taymar was mildly surprised. Most kars went out of their way to impose their position of power.
Not for the first time, she was wondering how large the ship really was by the time they finally stepped through the door. The furry man’s massive body filled the doorway as he stood, legs shoulder width apart, back straight, waiting for the door to close. Whatever was going to happen next, she was in no way going to stop him. Her mind was numb and her hands were banded behind her back. If he wanted revenge from Daryus, he was absolutely going to get it. The bed, the couch, or stand—those were her choices. She decided on standing, and walked over to the small window to watch the lights streak by. Great. They were tunneling again.
“I am Lieutenant Kellin Sacondore. We met on Daryus.”
“I remember,” she said, without turning around.
“You are a warrior worthy of respect,” Kellin continued. “I made a mistake and judged you to be of little consequence the first time we met. You taught me humility and to not be tricked by size.”
Taymar turned, not trying to hide her confusion. “What is with you people? You don’t thank the person who beat you down. You clean yourself up and beat them down in return. You and Ranealla are all about this lesson learning.”
A tiny smile tipped one side of his lips, but his expression remained one of near reverence. “It is a precious few who can teach me about war. Who can beat me down, as you say. I am grateful for the lesson.”
“I thought I killed you.”
“It takes a lot to kill me. Although, you did make a solid effort.”
This time, Taymar was the one who smiled, though briefly.
“Would you honor me with a rematch?”
“You want me to try to kill you again? Seems a little silly to me.”
Kellin stared at her, but didn’t answer. His gaze moved into the uncomfortable stage with remarkable speed, so she turned back to the window. “Won’t be much of a match right now,” she said, moving her shoulder to indicate her bound wrists.
“Not now,” Kellin said, his offense clear in his voice. “You will be with us for a while, I think. When you are free again, we can battle in the game room. You can choose the form, if you wish. It is not often I come across a worthy opponent.”
Taymar turned again and looked the man over. He was a monster. Taller than any Arlele she had ever met, and at least as wide. He would be a bad day for any mining foreman on Drani. She didn’t stand a chance against him without her teke. But whatever. “Sure. If I am ever free again, I will come find you.”
Kellin nodded and walked over to the couch. “I will sit here,” he announced, dropping onto the suddenly too small piece of furniture.
His formality was off-putting, to say the least, but it was also a little bit endearing. She watched him for a bit, but he didn’t move. He only stared at the door. How did her life become so strange? Depressed and exhausted, she moved over to the corner and slid to the floor. Way too many hours sitting in isolation with her hands bound behind her had taught her that sitting up in a corner was her only pain-free option.
In a slow trickle, reality settled in. She had ruined her one and only chance of escape. Can we go to navigation? Those were the words that were going to sentence her to the slow death she had only recently escaped. Can we go to navigation? Taymar clenched her fists and wished she could shove them through the hull. If she had been anywhere but in navigation, her plan would have worked. The Shreet ship was close; she could feel it in the tension on the ship. They would have come and she would have stolen one of their shuttles this time, and if she died, she died. But at least she wouldn’t do it on Drani.
The trickle opened up and devastating grief rushed in, enveloping her like a thick blanket of choking smoke. Her arms and legs became too heavy to move. Every breath required effort, and the wall she stared at became the backdrop for memories of her past, visions of her future. Isolation rooms. Tests. The medcom. The soft click of locking doors rang in her ears, and the smell of sterile rooms filled her nostrils. Their voices, their commands rang out in her mind as if they were in the room now. The drone of the computer, “Entering. Taymar of Council, ki, Nevvis of Corallis.” The command of the kar, “Rakki!” They were too real to be so far away. The ice-cold of the tables she had been restrained to so many times was on a different planet, yet she could feel it against her back, her skin. Somewhere in the distance, the man named Kellin spoke, but his words were lost in the suffocating darkness that tried to consume her.
As the terrors of her past clarified into the realities of the future she knew she was about to experience, Taymar slammed her head back against the wall and let her fear and rage scream out into the cabin. She screamed until her voice cracked. Until her will was only a thin, tattered memory and she had nothing left to scream with.
The furry man’s face swam in front of her, blurred behind the tears that she wouldn’t shed. He looked worried, or maybe confused. She couldn’t tell. “I can’t,” she whispered to him. To herself. “I can’t go back. I will make Nevvis kill me before I go back there. Dead, at least I will find peace.”
The face drew closer. His lips moved, but the sound took a while to reach her ears. Maybe she had broken them with her screaming. That would be okay. Then she wouldn’t hear the orders, the locks, the machines. “Do you hear me? You are not the type to give up. That is not who you are.”
She wanted to answer him, but it took too much effort. He started talking again, and this time the sounds matched his lips. “You are a warrior, a fighter, and there is no honor in giving in to death.”
Taymar looked away. “You don’t know what you are saying. You don’t understand what waits for me on that planet.”
“I think I do. I too have a home I have no desire to see. It is a place of constant war and slavery. A place where mothers sell their children, and children kill. Mine is a home running with blood and savagery.”
When she looked back at him, the confusion was gone, replaced by a fie
rceness she could understand. When he continued speaking, softer this time, she watched his eyes and drank in his conviction as if it were lifesaving water. “I did not give in to those dishonorable ways, nor did I give in to the death my own brother sought. Instead, I found my own source of honor, and finally my way out. You too must do what I have done. Warriors do not give up.”
They stared at each other in silence, an understanding passing between them that words could not convey, until Taymar finally nodded. Kellin nodded back, rose with the slow control of a predator, and returned to the couch.
“I will fight you,” Taymar said, speaking softly and slowly. “And I will win.”
Kellin’s only reply was that same tiny smile on one side of his mouth. It was enough.
###
How much time had passed, Taymar couldn’t say, but she was fighting off drowsiness when the door slid open and a much calmer Nevvis stepped into the room. Almost immediately, Kellin stood, but Taymar never even opened her eyes. She was still sulking on the floor with her head leaning against the wall, her now-numb arms bound behind her back.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Sacondore,” said Nevvis as the lieutenant headed out what had to be the door. “You may have saved her life.”
“I doubt that,” Kellin remarked as the door slid closed.
Nevvis stood silent for a moment, and she knew he was watching her. Taymar couldn’t help but wonder if Kellin had meant that she wouldn’t have tried to commit suicide, or that Nevvis wouldn’t have killed her. There was probably some truth to both statements.
“So,” began Nevvis, agitation still putting an edge on his tone. “What do you have for me now, Tay? Another shard of glass to slit my throat, or maybe you’re looking to give me another shot of klonide, the way you did a year ago?” That had been the reason for her second stay in holding.
“I have nothing,” muttered Taymar, still not looking at him. She knew after the nav-deck incident it would be a long time before Nevvis trusted her again. She was right.
“Rakki. Come away from the wall first,” he ordered in his usual cool manner.
Sucking in a ragged breath, Taymar closed her eyes again and drew strength from Kellin’s words. Then, with effort, she pushed herself up the wall, took three steps toward the couch, and then dropped to her knees. The proper rakki position required an Arlele to kneel with feet flat and arms extended, palms up. Since Taymar’s arms were bound behind her back, she could not do a full rakki, but she did what parts she could.
Nevvis circled her like a wary animal, making a complete trip around her before approaching. “Open your hands,” he commanded, stepping up behind her. He checked her hands and wrists, then felt around her waist and in her pockets for any weapons she may have been hiding. He even removed her shoes and rubbed his hands along her legs. When at last he was satisfied that she indeed had nothing, he simply gave her the okay and then stepped over to lean against the backside of the couch. At this, Taymar sat down on her feet and again waited.
“What were you thinking, Tay? Tell me that much.” Nevvis folded his arms across his chest and stared hard at her.
For the first time since Nevvis entered the room, Taymar faced him, looking straight into his cold, golden stare. As she spoke, she had to work hard to keep her voice from breaking, but even she could hear the desperation in her words. “I was thinking about you. About what you said.”
“What I said about what?”
Taymar’s control started to slip. “I was thinking about Drani. About what you said about sakuritu and being locked up day after day for the rest of my life, and I knew I had to escape somehow.”
“By blowing up the ship?”
“No,” she countered. “Captain Sean would have transported the reactor chamber off the ship. I have known the Shreet were nearby now for some time. I can feel the tension of this crew. I figured the explosion of the brakeal would get that ship’s attention. When the Shreet took over this ship, I would have escaped in one of their shuttles,” Taymar explained, still sitting on her feet. “It would have worked too, if I hadn’t been stupid enough to ask to see the nav-deck.”
Nevvis’s jaw fell open. “You were going to turn an entire ship full of people into prisoners of the Shreet just so you could travel into deep space for two days and suffocate?”
“I was willing to take my chances. Besides, everyone was thanking me the last time I did it.”
“That time it was the other way around! The Shreet are the bad guys, Tay.”
“How can you tell?” she returned.
Nevvis was silent. He had no answer for her. “Taymar,” he said finally. “There is so much you don’t understand. You have spent your whole life trying to break out of the system you’re trapped in, but there’s a whole universe of bigger systems out there. Once you’re out of one, you are already buried in another. I’m not going to fault you for trying to escape. I knew you would. But I cannot overlook your total disregard for the other lives you put in danger.” Then he turned and headed off toward the eating area.
“You would have done the same thing,” Taymar challenged.
Nevvis stopped short and turned to look at her again. “No, Tay. I wouldn’t have. I have been in some bad spots, and I can tell you honestly I wouldn’t have done what you tried to do today.” He stared at her with cold amber eyes until she finally looked away. “Go sit down on the bed and wait for me,” he ordered, disappearing into the other room.
When he returned, Nevvis was carrying a small glass full of murky white liquid. He set it on the stand by the bed and then pressed his thumb against the lock on the drawer. It answered with a hiss and cracked open. Pushing her legs aside, Nevvis used his laser key to open the bag that he kept in the drawer, took a package of powder from the bag, and after closing his things back up, mixed the powder with the drink. When he was finally done, Nevvis held the glass up to Taymar’s mouth. “Drink it.”
Taymar’s panic was instantaneous. “I’m not thirsty,” she breathed, twisting her head slightly to get away.
Nevvis buried his free hand in her hair and jerked her head back around. “I said drink it.”
Taymar’s breathing came in rasps. Her heart drummed in her ears and the room started spinning. “What is it?” she asked, trying unsuccessfully to pull away. With her hands still bound behind her back and no teke to help her, it was a futile effort.
The grip in her hair tightened as Nevvis pulled her toward him. “Taymar, if you don’t drink this right now, we are going to have a problem, and I don’t think you are going to like the solution.”
Taymar didn’t need her telepathy to know exactly what he meant. So, with a brief stab of pain to prompt her, Taymar opened her mouth and tried not to choke as Nevvis poured the drug down her throat.
When the glass was empty, Nevvis slammed it down on the night table and then turned back to Taymar with fire in his eyes. “You don’t know when to quit, Tay,” he fumed, still holding her hair in his fist. “Anybody else would have taken the medicine, no questions asked, and probably been glad it wasn’t an injection, but not you. No, you sit here stripped of your psychic ability, arms bound behind you and physically outmatched, yet you still have the nerve to challenge me. What is it that makes you do these things?” He released her hair but didn’t step away. “It’s not stupidity, because you are anything but stupid. So, what is it? Pride? Do you think you’re undefeatable?”
Nevvis paused, waiting for an answer. Taymar had none to give. She knew anything she said would only annoy him further. Instead, she kept quiet and worked at fighting back the tears that threatened to break away.
“You’re not,” Nevvis informed her, and with that statement, he reached down and untied the drawstring at her waist.
The horrors of her life before Nevvis stepped in as her ki flooded her thoughts, before moving to Nevvis’s house, when she lived in the glass room subject to whatever her prior ki wanted to do to her. Every thought but those abandoned her, and she launched herself at
Nevvis with everything she had.
Nevvis was knocked backward, but he managed to keep his footing. Taymar hopped sideways to regain her balance and charged at him again. Leaning into her shoulder, she aimed for his back, but he turned before she could make contact. Her shoulder glanced off his side, but his arms wrapped around her as she plowed by. Before she could get herself turned back around, Nevvis had her facedown over the bed, his mouth right next to her ear.
Taymar tried to wiggle out from under him, cursing her bound hands that made it too easy for Nevvis to hold her still. “I won’t hurt you, Tay. I wouldn’t do that,” Nevvis said, his body pressing her against the bed. “You know that. I’m not Teln.”
As his words wiggled their way through the panic, Taymar sucked in another panting breath and stopped trying to push him away.
“I was just pulling the string because you couldn’t. You know that’s not who I am.”
A wave of exhaustion washed over her as what he was saying finally settled in. She nodded, but didn’t speak as she realized she was trembling.
Nevvis took his weight off of her, but stayed close, rubbing her arm after helping her stand. “I’m sorry,” he said.
As soon as he moved, Taymar turned away from him and worked at regaining control of her emotions. Where that panic had come from, she had no idea, but it had been all consuming and she felt like wet paper in its wake. Despite that, Nevvis’s hand on her shoulder made her jump.
“Relax,” Nevvis said, turning her back around. “I’m just going to release your arms.”
When he finished, Nevvis handed her the shirt she had worn the night before. “Go change,” he said, finality clear in his voice.
Taymar grabbed the shirt and headed for the washroom. The exhaustion she had felt earlier multiplied exponentially as she stood leaning over the small basin that served as a sink. For a moment, she considered just taking a short nap right there on the floor. She could warp the lock so Nevvis couldn’t get it. Then she stared at herself in the mirror. No, she couldn’t, because the klonide had stolen her teke.
Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1) Page 25