“Why didn’t she need you, Declan?” Kai asked. “Is it because we don’t have our mating fangs?”
“She just needs all of us to come inside of her,” Declan said. “I came in her mouth, which was enough. As to whether or not she would have needed all three of us, I can’t say.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out before too long,” Jay said, smiling.
“Find out what?” Vari asked, her voice warm and a little sleepy.
“Whether or not you need all three of us to come inside of you or not, since our mating fangs haven’t descended,” Kai replied. “How do you feel?”
“Limp, worn out, but good.” She smiled. “But if you want to find out the answer to your question, I’m not going to object.”
“We’d love to take you up on that right now, Miraku,” Declan said. “Unfortunately, we have a meeting scheduled with the Ugaztun in about an hour and that’s nowhere near enough time. It’ll have to wait until later.”
“Well, in that case, I want food,” she said. “I haven’t eaten yet today.”
“Neither have we,” Declan said. “Why don’t we order some food to be delivered to the conference room and we can eat while we wait.”
“Perfect,” Vari said. “Though I think we should probably get dressed first. And I want a quick shower.”
“We better leave before that or we’ll never make it out of here,” Kai said, climbing off the bed and reaching for his pants.
“Good point,” Declan said as he and Jay did the same. They all kissed her before leaving, then she got out of bed and headed back to the shower.
Chapter 8
By the time Vari got to the conference room lunch had been delivered and Declan, Jay and Kai had spread the food out on the table. “Yum,” she said, grinning as she took the chair Jay pulled out for her. He leaned down and kissed her neck, causing her to tilt her head for more. He grinned down at her.
“If we start, your Ata and Garen will see a bit more than we’d like,” he said.
“Ick,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Jay laughed, then accepted the plate Kai passed him that was already loaded with food. Jay added a few more items to it and set it down in front of her.
“Wow,” she said softly.
“What’s the matter?” Declan asked.
“I’ve watched my Dads do that for my Mom, the Dracons do it for Aunt Lari. I never thought anyone would do it for me.” She shrugged, embarrassed. “Sounds stupid I guess.”
“Not to us,” Jay said. “We’ve watched and wanted these things too.”
Vari gave him a brilliant smile that made him forget for a moment that he was pouring juice into her glass. He remembered just in time to prevent it from overflowing, but not by much.
Vari waited until they all had food and were sitting down before she started to eat. They were all hungry since they’d all skipped breakfast, so it was silent for a time except for the familiar sounds of cutlery on china, and ice cubes in tall glasses.
“You said yesterday that you have a weapon of Kunian steel,” Kai said when Vari was finished eating. She nodded. “May we see it?”
“Yes, of course.” She reached down and unhooked her chain belt, removed it from her waist and held it up. Grasping it firmly at one end she tapped it and it stiffened into a solid, straight length of silver. With a couple of barely noticeable flicks of a finger tiny blades emerged from the thin slots along the bottom and top of the belt. She placed it carefully on the table so they could see it and examine it if they wished.
“This is nothing like your other dairi,” Declan said. “Will it work the same?”
“It should. The weight and balance are different but I’m going to spend some time with Lanok this afternoon practicing with it. Without the blades extended, of course. Which reminds me, is there any reason not to tell him why I need it?”
“No, none at all,” Declan said. “Our confidence in our crew has taken a small hit because of Marcel. But if there’s reason to doubt Lanok, you’d be the first person to know it.”
“Yes, I would,” she said, retracting the blades on the belt once they were finished looking at it. “You might as well know that I’ve been scanning everyone I see since discovering Marcel. So far, everyone I’ve checked is fine.”
“That’s good to know,” Declan said, watching her put the belt back on. “While we’re waiting for the call from the Ugaztun, we’d like to discuss what we’re going to do once we’re on the Leaper.”
“All right.”
“We know that Prince Garen believes we’ll be unable to retake the Leaper if it is, in fact, the Doftles behind this. But we intend to try. We’ll transport Ria and Shanti first, of course.”
“As much as I love my sister and Shanti, I can’t disregard the lives of the rest of the people on that ship, either. Do you guys have a plan?”
“We do, but we require more information.”
“What sort of information?”
“For starters, we need a schematic of the Leaper,” Jay said. “Unfortunately, it’s a Terien ship, and they have a consistent policy of not providing the ISTA with schematics of their vessels. Or engine specs, or their security systems, which we also need. We sent the Terian Interstellar Commerce Ministry a direct request yesterday evening which they have not yet responded to, even though it was marked with every indicator of urgency we could slap on it.”
Vari doubted the Teriens would cooperate. They had sticky pride, and would almost certainly refuse to back down from their original decision no matter how many lives were at stake. She had no doubt that the Dracon-Bats knew that as well as she did, so she didn’t bother to say it.
“Assuming you get that information, or a work-around, what do you have in mind?”
“Primarily, we want to stop the Leaper in its tracks,” Declan said. “But, as you pointed out yesterday, this has to be a stealth mission. We can’t just toss a plasma grenade into the engine room and shut the door. We need to disable the engines without causing permanent damage, disrupting power, life support, or anything else those people require to live and breathe until our task force arrives. Whatever we do has to be something that the Doftles can’t easily fix.”
“Do you know how to accomplish all of that?”
“In general, yes,” Jay replied. “But I’ll need details on the ship’s engines before I can be specific.”
“Can you do it without those details?”
“Only if I’m in the engine room myself. Unfortunately, the Leaper is one of the Terien’s new fleet of over-sized passenger liners and we were unable to find any data on the interior layout whatsoever. We could try to scan the ship for a clear area that we can transport to, which may be our only choice since we certainly can’t risk using the Leaper’s Transport chamber.”
“That worries you,” Vari said. “Doing a scan, I mean.”
“It does,” he admitted. “For several reasons. First, it’ll take a long time, especially with a ship that size. Second, a scan will show us where walls and large objects are, but it’s not going to label anything for us. We could end up in the middle of a stateroom, a corridor, a kitchen. We can make some educated guesses, of course, but there’s no way to be certain. And third, we can’t identify species without a bio-signature. We could end up transporting right in front of the Doftles and that wouldn’t be good.”
“I might be able to help with some of that,” Vari said. “I tend to get cabin fever rather quickly, so I do a lot of walking when I’m on a ship for more than two or three days. I was on the Leaper more than two weeks so I know every public area, and a few not so public. I can think of a few places that it might be safe to transport into.”
“That’s what we were hoping,” Declan said. “It’ll have to be an area large enough for all four of us.”
“That makes it more difficult, but I’ll give it some thought.”
“Even if we find a clear transport area, we still won’t have a route to the engine room,” Kai said. “We know in general w
here it’ll be, of course, but not how to get to it, or what obstacles will be in our way.”
“I know how to get there,” Vari said. They all raised their brows in surprise. “I never actually visited it, of course, but I do know one route to it.”
“I don’t doubt you Vari,” Kai said, “but how do you know how to get there if you haven’t been there?”
“Ria is a junior med-tech on the Leaper, which is the only reason I was on that monstrosity in the first place. I usually prefer smaller liners with a few thousand less people. I spent a lot of time visiting with her in the infirmary late at night when she didn’t have any patients.”
Kai chuckled, but neither Jay nor Declan seemed to get it. “Look on the wall right there, next to the door,” Kai said, gesturing back over his shoulder.
“It’s an emergency evacuation route to the escape pods,” Jay said impatiently. “But it only shows the route from this deck. Not the entire ship.”
“Exactly,” Kai said. “But if you go to the infirmary you’ll find one that shows evac routes for every room on every level of the Bihotza. There’s one just like it on the bridge. It’s basic safety law.”
“You’re right,” Declan said, smiling as he turned to Vari. “So you can guide us to the engine room.”
She nodded.
“That’s one problem down, then,” Jay said. “The next problem is security.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to do much more than get through a few locked doors,” Vari said. “You can do that with Air, right?”
“Maybe,” Declan said. “Teriens tend to go overboard when it comes to security. We won’t know if we can get through their security until we know more about it, and we won’t know that unless they respond to our request.”
“I don’t think it’ll matter.”
“You know what type of security they use?” Jay asked in surprise.
“No, I don’t have any idea,” she replied. “But it’s not going to be a problem because I think the Leaper’s security systems will be disabled.”
“Why do you think that?” Jay asked.
“I’m not a tactician or a soldier or a warrior or a tech expert or anything like that, but I do know the Doftles. They don’t take risks with their own lives. Ever. And they always leave revenge behind, just in case things don’t go their way. Generally in the form of a bomb.
“For their own safety, they’ll want to be absolutely certain that no one on that ship can call for help, and that there’s no chance of them being trapped by some unexpected security device. The Leaper’s too big for them to accomplish those objectives manually, so they’ll have some other way of taking out comms and security for the entire ship. A scan of some sort would be my guess.”
“What sort of scan?” Jay asked.
“I have no idea,” Vari said. “But Doftles are very advanced technologically. They’re the ones who created Controllers to begin with. Compared to that, I don’t think disabling a couple of systems in a passenger liner would give them much trouble.”
“That certainly makes things easier for us,” Kai said.
“It does and it doesn’t,” Vari said. “I know I said this before, but it bears repeating; never underestimate the Doftles. Those who do generally end up dead, or worse, a chemically paralyzed lab animal.”
“You think they’ll have put in their own security,” Declan said.
“Only on those areas that matter to them, but yes, absolutely.” She hesitated, remembering their resistance to her suggestions the day before. But too many lives were at stake for her to hold back because she was worried about their feelings. Or her own.
“I’m not sure that stopping the engines is the wisest course of action. I know you guys are the experts, and I’m sure that tactically it’s the right thing to do. But I think we need to consider this in terms of how the Doftles will react.”
Vari bit her lip when she was finished speaking and waited. To her relief they looked at her with curiosity and interest rather than amusement or irritation. “What are your concerns?” Declan asked.
Vari relaxed a little. “From the Doftles’ point of view the people on the Leaper are nothing more than potential slaves. Period. They are one hundred percent disposable.
“If the slaves get out of hand, or if they--or someone else--poses a threat to the Doftles, they’ll either kill a large number of passengers in order to bring everyone else into line, or they’ll just destroy the Leaper and try again. We have to be very careful not to let the Doftles know we’re on the Leaper until it’s too late for them to do anything about it.”
“Which makes stopping the engines a poor idea,” Declan said, nodding.
“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Vari said. “For what it’s worth, I agree that getting control of the engine room first is critical because it puts ultimate control of the Leaper in your hands. But if we stop the ship, we’ll just be giving ourselves away.”
“In that case, we’ll change the plan a bit,” Declan said. “We get to the engine room and take control of it, but we don’t stop the ship unless we have no other choice. Then we find the Doftles and take them out as fast and as quietly as possible.”
“That sounds good to me,” Vari said, relieved and happy that they’d accepted her advice.
“That brings us to the next problem,” Kai said. “How are we going to locate the Doftles? Again, the Leaper is a very big ship, so that may be a very big problem.”
“We could scan the Leaper for them, but we’ll need to get a bio-sig first,” Jay said. He looked at Vari. “How many of them do you think there’ll be?”
“No more than a dozen, and that many only because the Leaper is carrying so many people.”
“Seriously?” Jay asked in surprise.
Declan couldn’t begin to imagine how only a dozen Doftles could take over a ship the size of the Leaper, but he didn’t express his doubts this time. He had a better understanding of Vari now and knew that if she said something, it was worth listening to.
She downplayed her intelligence, her knowledge, and her skills so much that it had taken a while for him to recognize them. It was only when she was focused on a problem that she forgot herself and put everything she had into solving it. Like now. He’d wait until he heard what she had to say before expressing an opinion.
Vari took Jay’s question seriously, too focused on the problem at hand to notice his surprise or borderline sarcasm. “They won’t be all together,” she said. “Nor will they be alone. They’ll probably separate into small groups of two, maybe, but I think three is more likely.” She fell silent a moment, her eyes unfocused as she thought. Declan glanced at Jay, then Kai, and saw they were as intrigued as he was.
“They’ll spread out, covering the important areas of the ship like Control and the engine room,” Vari continued as though she hadn’t paused. “Other locations will depend on their number, but those two for certain. When we take the engine room we should be able to get a bio-sig from one of them. Then the Bihotza can scan the Leaper and let us know where the others are.”
“That sounds good,” Jay said. “Except for the number of Doftles. I don’t understand why you think so few of them would attempt to take over such a large ship.”
“Why would they need more?” Vari asked, frowning.
“Because twelve to fifteen thousand isn’t good odds.”
“It is if you know what you’re doing and trust me, the Doftles know exactly what they’re doing. They’ve done this countless times over the centuries and if they ever failed, no one lived to talk about it. Don’t forget about the tens of thousands of people we’ve already freed.”
“Point taken,” Declan said. “Do you have any theories as to how they’d accomplish this?”
“First they take out comms and security which we already discussed,” she said. “Next, they take Control on Deck One, and the engine room. If there’re enough of them they might cover Transport which is also on Deck One. It’ll make it easier for them to get pe
ople off the ship later. But if they can’t guard it, they’ll destroy it.”
She fell silent for a few moments, her eyes a little unfocused again. When Jay opened his mouth to speak, Declan made a quick gesture to stop him.
“Once they have control of the ship itself, they’ll turn to controlling the people inside,” she continued. “They’ll kill the Captain first, then all of the other high ranking officers so there’s no one left to lead.”
“Why do you assume the Doftles will prevail in a battle for the Leaper?” Kai asked. “I know it’s a passenger liner so the only real weapons will be hand lasers that can’t penetrate the hull. But the Captain and his officers will certainly be capable of using them with some skill.”
“You can shoot a hand laser at a Doftle all day long and it won’t even leave a mark,” Vari replied. “The same can’t be said for anyone else aboard the Leaper.”
“That’s right, you mentioned that before,” Kai said with a grimace. “I’m sorry for interrupting, Vari. Please, go on.”
Vari smiled to let him know she wasn’t offended. “So, the Doftles have complete control of the ship, it can’t be traced or tracked, no one can call for help, and they’re the only ones with weapons. All they need to do is terrify the passengers enough to keep them in line.
“They’ll probably wait for the first sign of someone growing a backbone. If no one does, they’ll manufacture a reason so they can kill a few dozen people who won’t be strong enough to make good slaves anyway. That means either the eldest, or the youngest.
“The passengers and whatever’s left of the crew will be demoralized, which is exactly what they want. No one will dare to make even the smallest gesture of rebellion because they won’t want to be responsible for more deaths.”
“They’d kill the children?” Kai asked, appalled. “Just to make a point?”
“Never for a moment doubt the Doftle’s capacity for sheer brutality. They’ll not only do it, they’ll enjoy it, Kai. I only hope they haven’t done it already.”
“I can see why you were so surprised to hear me describe the Doftles as pests,” Declan said. “Once again, I apologize.”
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