She wouldn’t ask the reason for his restlessness, though. Or his silence. It wasn’t polite and she was too tired, weary to the bone. The trip, plus facing the crew, had been utterly draining. They’d stared at her with that peculiar combination of awe and revulsion that telenetics seemed to produce in normals. It had been a long time since she’d had to endure so many curious eyes. Perhaps never—she was used to peaceful solitude at the Institute and the crew unsettled her to her soul.
So while her new boss paced, she eased back in her chair and tried to rest. He didn’t make it easy. His restless movements and his aura of powerful command kept snagging her attention. He had a wiry, rangy form with long, spare features, his receding sandy hair cut short while still managing to rebel in a cowlick at the back of his head. His entire long form seemed to vibrate with energy, but every move he made was deliberate and measured, as though experience had taught him caution or control.
Without warning, his stride turned into a slow stroll to the seat across from her. He settled into the cushions, his light blue eyes spearing her with keen regard. "Please forgive my rudeness," he said in an unexpectedly melodious voice. "The Institute explained that you were young and inexperienced, but they insisted that you were the right choice for the Odyssey. Seeing you, though, I’m afraid I have doubts."
Jaded weariness pressed on her like a collapsing mountain, but she gave no sign of her despair. She was too well trained to show any weakness. "I understand, Commander. At seventeen, I must seem a child to your eyes. But the Institute would not send me to you if they were not completely confident of my telenetic ability."
"Yes," the commander said, studying her with a curious, seemingly fearless gaze. "They did mention you were something of a wonder. They used lots of technical terms, but I’m just a soldier. Could you explain why your abilities are so special?"
An interview, she thought with a fretful sort of distress. They had warned her to expect skepticism, but she had hoped for a little solitude and time to recover her equilibrium before she had to explain herself. Before she had to prove herself worthy.
Schooling her expression and voice to serenity, she said, "Certainly, Commander. You know that telenetics are able to affect their physical surroundings with just the power of their minds. This ability varies in strength, though the discovery of the enhancing properties of crystalline matrices has greatly helped to focus and strengthen a telenetic’s talent. On the Rosch Scale, a level one telenetic could become a two or even a three with the proper crystal focus."
The commander nodded with grave encouragement, his attention riveted unwaveringly upon her even though what she’d said was common knowledge. She liked him for that, for his patience and courtesy.
"I can’t use crystals," she said. "I burn them out."
A frown tightened his brow before his expression smoothed again. "You burn them?" he prompted in a neutral tone.
"The Rosch Scale goes from one to five, five being the most powerful telenetic. We only have three of those currently working for the Institute. I’m off the scale. They haven’t been able to rate my abilities, but if you were to put me on a scale, I’m guessing I’d be somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty."
His eyes widened, and he blinked at her several times before he coughed lightly into his fist. "I see."
"You don’t believe me," she said, unable to control the flat weariness of her tone.
"They said you were very powerful. They didn’t go into detail."
She very much doubted the truth of that statement but contained her cynicism carefully. Looking past his shoulder at the blank wall, she said, "A telenetic’s ability is nurtured and honed to the pinnacle of their talent. They are accepted into the Institute as children and most of their lifelong training is based on increasing and strengthening their talent. That’s not my problem. All of my life, I’ve worked to contain my ability. This," she reached up and touched the intricate snood confining her dark hair, "is not to help me focus and expand my talent. It’s my leash."
The muscles in his cheeks twitched at the bitterness in her voice, but his eyes remained steady. "What does it do?"
She pressed her lips together, angry with herself for letting so much of her emotions slip out. Being tired was no excuse. But she’d already begun—no sense lying to him now. The Institute had told her to obey him as she would them, so she would answer. With fierce control, she said in an even voice, "It’s a pain inducer. It’s activated by any use of my abilities. It also records everything I do and say. My handlers like to keep a close watch on me. I’m…something new." Something to be feared. But she didn’t say that part aloud.
A solid line appeared between his brows. "They cause you pain if you use your talent?"
There was outrage in his tone, but she answered him as she would have a member of the Institute. "Only unauthorized use of my abilities. When I have proper authorization, I may remove the net and perform my duties."
His lips appeared pinched and a white line formed from his nostrils to his mouth. Ryelle studied him curiously, wondering what emotion caused such a change in his demeanor. Maybe he wasn’t pleased that the Institute recorded everything, since that would mean they would have an unprecedented knowledge of his actions.
"I assume," he said with a bite in his tone, "that I can authorize removal of that thing."
"Of course," she said with some surprise. "You are my commander. As long as I am on this ship, I report directly to you and follow all your orders unless they contradict Institute law regarding telenetics."
"Take it off, then," he said with such revulsion that she blinked, taken aback.
Eyeing him warily, she reached up and touched the release pads at each temple. When she felt the loosening of the net, she slid it from her head and draped it over the arm of her chair.
"Is it possible for you to leave it off?" he asked, surprising her again.
"My handlers would not approve," she said softly, weaving her fingers together in her lap. "If you are concerned for your privacy, I’m sure they will allow me to remove it whenever I am in your presence."
"Privacy," he spat, as if she’d said a dirty word.
Tension spiraled up her spine. How had she offended him?
Rising, he began to pace again, his hands fisted in the small of his back. This time, his movements held the controlled power of a hunting animal. As he paced, he addressed her formally without looking at her, "Mims Soliere, I have had many dealings with the Institute. Never before have I had cause to consider them barbaric or sadistic. Putting a pain inducer on a child is not something I can accept."
Ryelle opened her mouth and then closed it again, unable to think of a thing to say. He was concerned for her. She had just told him how dangerous she was and instead of reacting with fear or revulsion, he’d shown concern for her well being. It was so astonishing that she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. She pressed her feet against the floor, pushing her back into the chair to steady herself. It had been so long since anyone had treated her like this. So long…
She closed her eyes against the well of grief that surged through her. "Sir," she started to say then had to clear the unsettling rasp from her throat. "Sir, if it’s any consolation, I haven’t experienced pain in quite some time. I have very good control."
He was suddenly in front of her, his light blue gaze pinning her in place. "Then why haven’t they stopped putting it on you?"
She swallowed, taking a slow, steady breath before answering, "Because they need to be sure that I can control myself in the field, too."
He made a harsh noise in his throat, his head lifting and nostrils flaring like an animal scenting prey. But he took a deliberate step back and settled into his seat again, his expression turning wry. "That scared of you, are they?"
She didn’t want to say it. This was the first person to show her real human kindness since her mother. She didn’t want to alienate him, but he needed to know what he was up against. "You should be scared of me, too
, Commander Task. If I lost control or if I went rogue, no one could stop me."
Instead of looking wary or nervous, he raised a mild eyebrow. "Having any destructive thoughts about my ship?"
A frown creased her brow. "No, of course not."
"Feel like slaughtering my crew?"
"Commander—"
He held up a hand. "I understand. Not having met the crew, you couldn’t really say if you felt homicidal about them yet." There was a twinkle in his eye.
She stared at him with blank incomprehension.
"So let’s make a deal. You get to know my crew, and if you start wanting to kill somebody, let me know. I suspect your first victim will be the cook."
She continued to stare at him.
He sighed and rose to his feet again. "We’ll have to work on your sense of humor. Do you feel up to a demonstration of this incredible power of yours?"
"Of course," she said stiffly, gathering the net in her hands and standing.
"Please," he said with a grim look at the snood in her grip, "leave that here."
She blinked at him and nodded, returning it to the chair. Then she followed him out of his office and through several narrow corridors to a holo-observation deck. She hesitated on the threshold, a little unnerved by the wide-open space on all sides. She knew it couldn’t be open to vacuum, that it was just holograph imagery, but it was still not a comfortable first step.
"Unsettling, I know," the commander said with a curl of his mouth. "Even for someone like me who is accustomed to space travel, this much openness took some getting used to. If it becomes too much, just look down at your feet until that feeling of being sucked out into the dark goes away."
She made an astonished sound in her throat. Standing on the edge of a room that seemed to gape into blackness felt exactly like that. Gingerly, she stepped into the wide room. When she wasn’t sucked anywhere, she edged closer to the commander and clasped her hands together at her waist, taking deep, measured breaths as she had been taught.
"You’re a brave little mims," he murmured almost too low for her to hear.
"I’m your telenetic," she said as serenely as she could. "How can you trust me to do my duty if I’m afraid of something so simple?"
"Point taken," he said in a bland tone, but she was suspicious of the twitch of his lips. "So, Telenetic Soliere, show me what you can do."
Ryelle looked out at the vista of space beyond the ship. A planet floated below them, a colonized outpost that had been the designated meeting place for her transport and the Odyssey. It was a ringed planet, which meant there was plenty of floating rock close at hand. She gestured to the rings. "Do you see the large asteroid with the outcropping that looks like a crooked tower?"
He scanned the rings and then nodded.
"I know you’ve had experience with telenetics before, but bear with me. It’s very large and mass is a factor for a telenetic. A level two telenetic would be able to slow that asteroid’s trajectory." As she spoke, she exerted a trickle of her ability, slowing the big rock. "A decent three could alter its course." She did so, drawing it out of the ring and pulling it towards them at a ponderous pace. "A four could speed it up."
The asteroid increased velocity, and the commander’s eyebrows rose as it closed on their position.
"A five could fracture the rock, possibly breaking off chunks of it." She followed actions with words, halving the asteroid as if she’d drawn a knife through it. "It’s a very large rock," she said in a hushed tone, as it seemed to fill their entire vision, looming ominously.
The commander cleared his throat and shifted in place, looking wary now.
"And then there’s what I can do," she whispered, letting her ability unravel from her with a sense of immeasurable relief. Keeping such a constant, tight control was exhausting to the point of insanity.
The asteroid came to a dead stop, both halves lurching together as if magnetized. Then, with silent violence, it exploded.
The commander gasped and Ryelle smiled grimly. "Not done yet," she murmured, watching the countless pieces spinning away from the point of explosion. Suddenly, all the pieces reversed course and came crashing back together into a semblance of the asteroid’s former shape. The mass spun first one way and then another, as if showing off it’s renewed form, before the whole thing shot away from them at an extraordinary speed. A moment later, it was out of sight.
"Mother of God," the commander whispered.
Ryelle turned to look at him, a dismal ache settling in her chest at the naked shock on his face. Now she would stop being human to him and become some sort of monster. It was inevitable.
He twitched, still staring into space. "It’s coming back."
"Yes. I didn’t want a rogue asteroid flying around knocking ships out of the sky." Without looking away from the commander’s rigid features, she settled the rock back into its place in the ring. It was no longer a whole asteroid, but the pieces would still drift along in a normal orbit with the rest of the ring debris.
"Ryelle," he said with care, still staring at the returned jumble of rock, "that asteroid was nearly as big as this ship."
"I know."
"You—that’s—" His lips continued to move, but no sound came out.
She felt the bitterness in her smile and schooled her expression back to blank serenity. "I know. Like this observatory, I’m going to take some getting used to."
Chapter 2
Over the course of the next several days, Declan heard rumors of the telenetic as the large ship got underway to the Mirabella system. Some were fanciful or purely outrageous, and Declan counted himself lucky to have a reliable filter for these rumors in the Chief Engineer. The Chief would roll his eyes and set Declan straight. In this way, Declan got a pretty good idea of what the girl looked like—his imagination created a fey beauty with flowing locks of dark hair, skin like moonlight, and large, mysterious dark eyes. That was as far as his fantasies took him, however, because the rest of the rumors were much less enticing. She was distant with the crew, barely acknowledging their existence. The Chief was more generous of her attitude than other crewmembers, saying she was just not used to being in close contact with normals.
The one comment that disturbed Declan the most, though, came directly from the Chief. The small man had just returned from the command deck, a frown on his normally easy-going features. When Declan had asked him what was wrong, the Chief seemed to have trouble putting it into words. "A feeling," he’d said. He’d been uneasy by how the commander treated their new telenetic. According to the Chief, Commander Task had always given their previous telenetics respect, but his deference and careful handling of this girl was out of character.
Declan brooded about it, wondering if the commander had developed an attraction for her. He didn’t want to think it—his respect and admiration for his superior bordered on hero worship. But though the commander was in his forties and old in Declan’s eyes, he was still a man, presumably subject to the same desires as other men. The telenetic was underage, but from all accounts she was pretty enough to turn heads, so maybe she’d turned the commander’s. He didn’t suggest it to either the Chief or Bags. Just the thought felt disloyal. Discussing it with other crew seemed treasonous.
So days passed and as he’d predicted, he caught not even a glimpse of their newest crewmember. His days were spent in the engineering section, with occasional forays to different sections of the ship as a handyman. He had an aptitude for all things mechanical, so he was often sought out for fixit projects. This did not lead him into the officer’s quarters or the command deck, though, and that’s where the telenetic spent most of her time.
Resigning himself to the inevitable, he stopped looking over his shoulder and craning his neck around corners looking for her. She was out of his reach, literally as well as figuratively. He had to be content hearing about her as if she was some fantastic tale to delight disbelievers.
He was doing just that in the mess hall, slowly eating his lu
nch while tuning a sharp ear to the next table. Several pilots lounged around a table laden with half-eaten plates and platters of food, their voices rising above the general din of the mess hall.
"—walked right at me! Looked at me, too, and I swear she smiled."
The woman next to him scoffed and threw a vegetable at him. "Dreamin’ again, were ya?" She turned to the others with a snicker. "Roddy bastard’s been wet-dreamin’ every night since she boarded."
"Sark off, Keesha. I ain’t lyin’. I was up on five, waiting for the Lt. She turned a corner and—oh, shit, there she is!"
Declan thought the pilot was just elaborating on his story until he noticed the expanding silence. He looked up and saw everyone staring at the entrance. Shifting in his seat, he glanced over his shoulder and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.
The telenetic.
She paused at the threshold for a moment, giving the large room and its occupants a measuring glance, before she began to walk across the mess. As she drew closer, Declan felt the floor follow the path his stomach had taken, dropping out from under his feet. She was stunning in a way he could barely comprehend. Lovely, yes—the rich, dark chocolate of her hair made a lustrous background for the intricate silver net framing delicate features. The light seemed to make her creamy skin glow, striking a fantastic contrast with her thick-lashed, black eyes. Her slim form clothed in the long-sleeved, gray dress moved with such grace that she seemed to glide rather than walk.
But it wasn’t her beauty that made him forget to breathe. He’d seen more classically beautiful women—the pilot Keesha was a good example, with full lips, sultry eyes, and cheekbones a model would envy. There was just something about the way the telenetic held herself, the way she moved, as though she was on a different plane of existence, as though she was part of a reality so alien that he could not even imagine it. Her expression was calm and assured, but the inky darkness of her eyes suggested vast, unexplored regions behind her cool facade. Power moved with her like a thunderous cloud.
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