Dakoda's Revenge

by Suzi Goode

  Even though he had braced himself, Roland crashed backwards into Pardua. Gunfire blasting through the tunnel, deafened her. As bullets ricocheted in the confined area, tears blinded her. She clamped her palms over her ears, willing the horrendous noise to stop. Something fell on top of her, but she couldn't say with any certainty what it was, although it was spongy and soft.

  A deafening stillness descended. Was someone whimpering?

  "Are you alright?” she heard Harley ask in a soft whisper.

  "I'm not sure. I was hit again."

  "I know,” came the murmured reply.

  Strangely enough, she had felt the searing stinging for only a few seconds while she held onto consciousness as the bullets flew over her head. Now she felt nothing, as if her body were paralyzed.

  "Can you wiggle your fingers?"

  "Is Roland dead? Where is Pardua?"

  "Let's worry about you first, okay?"

  Reluctantly, she agreed and observed her right hand. Her brain said she was clenching and unclenching her fingers. However, there was no movement. “No,” she moaned. This couldn't be happening. The thought of being paralyzed for life frightened her more than dying.

  "Just stay low for the time being,” Harley continued in a low voice. “I'll get you help. I promise."

  "I know what the answer is,” she managed as he got up.

  "Well? I'm waiting too,” another voice spoke.

  Odessa turned her head, appalled at hearing Pardua speak. She didn't fail to see the shokkgun he trained on Harley.

  Their eyes met. Pardua laughed. “You only took out one of us, my pet. That was one less than you needed to clear the field, but I understand you owed him one."

  She let her cheek rest on the warm floor. There was no way to win. A few feet away, Roland's dead eyes stared at the ceiling. She cast her gaze back to Pardua's smirk.

  "Now then, Harley, or should I say Agent Harley? You had me neatly fooled, until she came,” Pardua said, nodding in Odessa's direction. “That is the one mistake you made. Seeking her out. At first, I thought you were infatuated with her, but after I sent Ralph to take a few pot shots at you, I realized it had to be something more than that. Something that very well might jeopardize what I've taken so much time and care to build. Of course, you know I won't allow you to ruin that."

  Harley's heart sank. He was no better off now than he had been when the bomb exploded in the warehouse. He'd thought he didn't have a chance then. Did he have one this time? He held his palms up in the air as a sign of surrender. How long had Pardua known he was GDA? Maybe hours, he ventured to guess. He bartered for time to think of a way to escape. Four soldiers stood directly behind the Murrach, their shokkguns drawn. Maybe there would be no walking away from this mission. Not this time.

  "If you have me killed, the GDA won't allow you to rule anywhere but this station, and that not for long."

  "I am not the GDA's minion and have not, and will not, follow their dictates. I will rule what I want."

  "Pretty ambitious plan,” Harley said, wondering how much pain Odessa was in. She lay still and made no sound. “But one man against the whole universe? How were you going to achieve that among so many different kinds of peoples?"

  Pardua's evil grin made him shudder. “I gave you credit for being a lot more intelligent than the average man. Apparently, I overestimated you."

  Harley allowed his anger to simmer, but not enough to blind his judgment. He had to come up with a plan quickly, or else he took the risk Odessa would die in front of his eyes. He couldn't bear the thought of living his life without her. She had done what no woman he had known had ever done—placed herself in the line of fire to save his life. She deserved better than to die on a space station, which should have been relegated to the status of space junk years ago.

  Strangely enough, she started humming the old, but still much loved, “Star Spangled Banner.” He knew she was up to something. Again. He distracted Pardua from his keen observation of the woman. Did the Murrach recognize the tune? “I'm sorry to hear that. I believed I could outwit you, but I was mistaken, like so many other agents before me."

  Pardua laughed, probably flattered by Harley's words. “With the Gr'iis, no one will know, much less care, that I've taken over the universe."

  "What's the point in ruling drugged people?” The man was definitely conceited.

  "That's the beauty of it. While the people who use the Gr'iis die off, I will be perfecting the means to manipulate genes to make all peoples more like the Deloricans, who are half human, if you will, and half metal. And they will all do my bidding without question. Soon, the universe will be filled with people who owe allegiance only to me, since I brought them to life. And keep them alive."

  Harley felt bile rise in his throat. Pardua would take away the freedom of the people he had slyly introduced to Gr'iis.

  He heard the slightest scraping sound coming from beside his right foot, but dared not look down at Odessa. If he did, he might distract Pardua, who was absorbed in delusions of his greatness.

  Odessa listened to the rise and fall of Pardua's voice. He was insane, she concluded as she slowly slid her fingers toward the helmet. Each fraction of a movement was excruciatingly painful along her spine, but she had to test her theory. If she was wrong, she had nothing more to lose. If she was right, Pardua would have made his last great speech.

  The tips of her fingers connected with the netting inside the crown of the helmet. She started praying. Her lips moved soundlessly in a plea for help as she began to focus on the world inside the helmet.

  Chapter 18

  The crowd's soaring crescendo swamped Odessa's senses. She struggled through the oppressive mist as she listened to Pardua's voice, a dissonant harmonization with so many others. If she made herself known above all the other voices, perhaps they could become a collective consciousness through the virtual reality that, unknown to her, had become a part of her on The Drifter.

  In some instances, virtual reality became the reality one lived in, much like alternate universes became the reality if a person managed to cross the thread-thin line between two universes. She needed to call for help. The collective consciousness that lived within the helmet would come to her aid if she explained the desperateness of the situation. After all, the peoples would be greatly affected if Pardua instituted his plan on a larger scale than he already had. He could easily wipe out whole civilizations and replace them with Gr'iis users.

  Odessa had to shout to make her voice heard. The cacophony continued unabated for an interminably long time before silence descended. She spoke eloquently, outlining to her listeners exactly what was at stake. Before she knew what was happening, the power of the collective's anger began to surge through her high-strung nerves. She couldn't stop the flow of energy barreling into her.

  The sensation built into a stream of living, pain-filled anger and hatred at injustice. She cried out for the people to stop, but the flow of energy continued unabated. Odessa could bear it no longer. She screamed in agony.

  * * * *

  Harley fought back his overriding fear as Pardua delayed the inevitable and talked like the madman he was. When Odessa pulled the helmet onto her head, Pardua had laughed manically. “See? She prefers virtual reality to the one she lives in. How gratifying to see my plan working with a woman I perceived as a threat."

  The GDA agent didn't think that was the whole truth, but what if Pardua was right and Odessa had fled the terrible awareness of her pain by donning the helmet?

  Pardua droned on and on about his greatness, oblivious to the fact Harley no longer listened. In the distance, a noise as of a vast troop of soldiers marching forward reverberated through the corridor. As the sound got louder, he heard what sounded like a million phone lines connecting at the same time.

  Pardua forced him to his knees, preparatory to shooting him in the head. The end was near. How could a man fight a rushing bullet? Harley waited, figuring he could tackle the large man the same way O
dessa had Baylon. He discarded the hasty plan. By the time his head smacked into Pardua's legs, Harley's brains would be all over the floor. Then who would help Odessa? If she wasn't dead already?

  The voices rose to a fever pitch.

  "I'm going to make sure you never trouble me anymore,” Pardua said with finality.

  Any second now, the Murrach would pull the trigger and Harley was guaranteed his life would end.

  The sounds rose higher and higher. Shrieks of indignation, of raging anger.

  "What is going on?” Harley heard Pardua ask.

  His heart raced. An enormous pearl gray cloud headed straight towards Pardua's head. Pardua shouted. “Stop at once!” before he crumpled to his knees, his hands clamped over his ears. “Stop! Stop!"

  Harley watched the other man scream as the belligerent cloud moved forward, wrapped itself around Pardua like a spider weaving a web around a black insect. When the maddened spiraling stopped, Pardua had vanished. Nothing of him remained.

  His only concern for Odessa, Harley fell to his knees and checked her pulse. She was barely alive.

  Chapter 19

  After their encounter had killed Pardua, Harley had been lauded as a hero, but he refused to accept the accolades. Only Odessa deserved them. She was the one who had brought Pardua's reign to an end. But she lay in a coma, hovering between life and death.

  Hoping with every part of his being that Odessa would recover, and that she might want to set eyes again on the trees and mountains she loved so much, he had spent the last three months on a private spaceship flying her home to Earth. Baylon was dead, and Pardua's empire had crumbled as soon as word got out that he had been killed. The GDA had prevented shipments of Gr'iis from being loaded on ships to other parts of the galaxy, and had confiscated and destroyed the manufacturing center within the space station.

  For the first time in the station's history, a woman governed the residents and travelers with a firm, but considerate, hand. With Zorm's help, Violette had raised a small S.W.A.T team of teenagers and women who tackled the station guards, even as Pardua breathed his last. None had been injured, but each was satisfied they had finally rid the station of evil.

  All of the women on Romaydia had been given the option of returning home. Most had chosen to do so. Others, like Violette, believed their destiny was to create a safe haven, where men and women alike could seek refuge from bone-wearying galactic travel.

  Harley blinked back tears, as he so often had in the last months. Odessa was only a shadow of her former self. She hadn't moved once since the helmet she had embraced had channeled a mysterious energy from her hand to Pardua in a deadly arc of what had appeared to be shokkgun fire.

  Newly arrived in Wenatchee, Harley knelt beside the hospital bed and held her petite hand in his, praying she would rise from the coma and be her vibrant self again. His misery knew no bounds, and he made no attempt to hide his tears as a nurse arrived silently and checked Odessa's vital information for the umpteenth time that day.

  He looked up at the woman in white with questioning eyes.

  "I'm sorry,” she whispered. “There's no change.” She walked out, shaking her head.

  Harley rested his head against Odessa's hand and sobbed, feeling the pulse beat gently in her wrist. “Please, Odessa, wake up. I promise, I'll love you until eternity ends."

  He scrutinized her face for any sign she had heard. There was nothing but the soft rise and fall of her breasts. Her hair had grown longer and fanned out on the pillow, gold strands against white cotton. How much longer would he be able to stand the hospital's antiseptic smell, not quite able to cover the scent of lingering death? Would her brothers blame him for her state when they arrived?

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Only ten minutes had elapsed since he had called Brody Grante and let him know the ship had arrived, and that Odessa was now in the private hospital with a grand view of the orchards wreathed in russet and tan colors of full-blown autumn, and her beloved mountains hovering in the distance.

  The soft tread of rubber-soled shoes invaded his wretched desolation. The man had hair identical to Odessa's spun gold, and equaled Harley in height. “Dakoda?” he asked, worrying his lower lip.

  Harley nodded, got to his feet, and shook Odessa's brother's hand. The man could easily have qualified for GDA admission. His bulk alone would have deterred criminal activity.

  "How is she?"

  "There's no change,” Harley echoed the nurse's dismal words.

  Another man, who appeared to be a carbon copy of Brody, strolled in. “My brother, Jason,” Brody said, by way of introduction.

  After a round of handshakes, Jason asked, “You told us she has other injuries.” Both the brothers hovered over the bed, examining Odessa as if they were afraid to touch her.

  Harley grimaced, reluctant to admit the truth to himself, but having been forced to face the facts several times. “She has severe burns along her right arm and down the side of her neck, but the doctor said she'll be okay once she comes out of the coma."

  The brothers nodded in unison. “We'd love to have you stay with us."

  "Yeah, we would. We even cleaned up the kitchen."

  Brody elbowed his twin. “Along with the rest of the house. Took us three months, but we managed."

  Despite the sorrow and worry he felt, Harley smiled at their liveliness. “I'd like that, but I better warn you. This might take some time."

  "We're not going anywhere in a hurry, although we better warn you: Uncle Peter might enlist you for KP duty."

  "Odessa mentioned him many times."

  "Just wait until he sees her. It will break his heart."

  "Maybe send him to an early grave,” the twin said.

  Before Harley could state how much he wanted to meet the old man, a piercing voice interrupted. “Don't push me along so fast, son."

  A snowy-white-haired man entered the room at a brisk pace with a matronly nurse speeding after him. “You can't smoke a pipe in here, sir. It's against hospital policy."

  The old man abruptly stopped in his tracks and faced her. The nurse smashed into his chest. “I'll be damned if anyone tells me at my age what I can or cannot do, lady,” he boomed.

  The nurse's outrage turned into a scowl before she strode away, quite possibly to get the hospital's security staff.

  "That's Uncle Peter,” Brody said with a chuckle.

  "This is Uncle Peter,” the old man corrected.

  "Instilling the fear of God in everyone,” Jason said with a flourish of his hand.

  Uncle Peter didn't acknowledge Harley in any way. He no longer seemed to hear his chattering nephews, but knelt by the side of Odessa's bed and took her hand in his. The smallness of her hand was swallowed up by the size of his hefty one. “Odessa. You've got to come home. If I told you I was a dyin', I'd be lying, so I won't pull that stunt, but you gotta come home."

  "Yeah, don't let him pull that stunt on you. He's madly in love with Joanna Petrocheeni,” Brody offered.

  "Yeah, he's as old as the hills, but he's never going to die,” Jason put in.

  Harley suddenly wished he had a supportive family like Odessa apparently had. Their banter soothed his nerves and allowed him to think that better days might lie ahead. The last few months of worrying about whether Odessa would come around had taken their toll. He slept very little and knew he had lost a lot of weight. Often, he had to force himself to eat, fearing there would be no one around for Odessa when she needed someone.

  "Son,” Uncle Peter said, looking up at his nephew, “why don't you take your brother and find a coffee shop and get me some of that new-fangled fruit coffee while I talk to your sister?"

  Brody didn't move. He folded his arms across his chest.

  "She doesn't hear you, sir,” Harley offered.

  "Horses’ patootie. She hears everything I say. I have no doubt about that.” He turned to his niece and smoothed the top of her hand. “Listen, I read about what you did on that space station. Agent Harley m
ade no bones about how you saved his skin along with those of the innocent. Like, we didn't even know how much danger we were in from this Murrach guy. But nothing to fear from now on, little one. He's gone and your man's waiting here for you to wake up, just like you were Sleeping Beauty. Plus, he wants to marry you. So, you see, your uncle remembers some of the fairy tales you came home and told him when you were no higher than a cricket. The right ones, I want to tell you. And let me tell you too, but this man, he loves you more than words will ever express. So now, girl, you gotta wake up and give me some little pattering feet to keep my heart ticking. I got kind of addicted to having you little ones around."

  Brody coughed, but Jason said with a hint of levity, “And he isn't getting any younger either."

  Harley couldn't help but smile at the old man's plucky spirit. Odessa had the same gutsy nature. She let nothing deter her from standing up for herself, especially if she believed she was right.

  "You should try to convince her to wake up and get better, not get pregnant right away,” Brody protested.

  "Rubbish. She's right there somewhere."

  Brody shrugged. “Have it your way.” He stood beside Harley. “I'm sorry. He always says what's on his mind."

  "Only way to be in this world, son. Especially at my age."

  Harley liked the old man's forthrightness. “I'm afraid the helmet disconnected some of her synapses."

  "Sounds like a Joanna Petrocheeni movie to me,” Uncle Peter murmured. “What are these synapses?"

  "It's the point from which a nervous impulse passes from one neuron to another. It's the physical aspect of how we think,” Harley replied, rubbing his temple. Exhaustion was beginning to set in.

  "How did she know she could talk to Uncle Peter through the helmet?” Brody asked.

  Harley shrugged. “My guess is she loved him enough to be able to talk with him at a distance. The helmet amplifies her thoughts enough to enable her to communicate."