No Such Thing

by Michelle O'Leary

  Ryelle lifted her eyebrows at the implied threat of withheld sustenance but didn’t comment. Instead, she asked, "Declan, could you whip us up some shakes? Chocolate should put us all in a better mood." She gave him a winning smile, to which he scowled but left without a word.

  Ryelle sat back down and leaned toward the children with a conspiratorial air. "Before he comes back, I wanted to give you some idea of why I’m talking with you instead of just locking you up like prisoners. I’m the Telenetic Institute’s Advocate for Telenetic Rights. This means I have a responsibility to make sure that all telenetics have the care, education, and training they deserve, and are treated fairly and with respect under the law. Previously, that has only applied to Central citizens, but you three are also telenetics. I can’t ignore the fact that I have a responsibility to you as well.

  "Your people and mine have been at war for a long time. The root cause, as I see it, is your people’s need to return to their ancestral home. The problem my people have with that idea is the method the GenTecs have been using to return. I’ve got an alternative. You need a teacher—I’m willing to be your teacher. You’ll be accepted into the Institute and the GenTec will have a foothold into one of the most influential parts of our society. In essence, they’ll have a way home through you."

  They stared at her with blank faces for a long moment. Then they stared at each other with blank faces.

  Ryelle shifted in her seat and pursed her lips. "Too heavy on the drama?"

  "You seem…unbalanced," Daniel finally ventured.

  She laughed and sat back. "Declan tells me that all the time. Too much crazy-talk or too much adult-speak?"

  The boy considered this carefully, studying her with his disconcerting ebony eyes. "Both. Why don’t you want the station head to know what you said to us?"

  "He’d freak. He takes a more traditional view of you and your people. He wouldn’t understand why I’m extending a friendly hand."

  All three stared at her as if she was some kind of dangerous alien life form. She supposed that to them she was a dangerous alien.

  "We don’t want to be here, but you’re keeping us here. That’s not friendly," Rose said in her clear, sweet voice.

  "I’m holding you for everyone’s safety, including your own. Tell me, what were you planning to do to the station after you’d taken me?"

  They didn’t answer, but when all three looked down, she was satisfied that her point was made. Before she could continue, Declan entered with a tray full of shakes and a disgruntled expression. Ryelle jumped to her feet, ignoring the look on his face as she patted her hands together in glee.

  "Kids, you’re in for a real treat. This," she said, grinning as she picked up one of the shakes with a flourish, "is heaven in a glass. This man is a genius and a saint of some kind."

  Ryelle handed out the shakes with a smirk for their dubious expressions. Then she snuggled back down in her seat with her own glass. The first bite was frozen ambrosia, and she sighed with delight. Then she lifted her eyebrows when she saw that the children were just watching her. "What? Waiting for me to keel over?" She scooped another bite. "Go on, try it."

  As she’d guessed he would, Jake was the first to sample the thick shake. The spoon went into his mouth with caution then stayed there while his eyes rounded. He popped the spoon back out and turned to his companions with astonishment written in every line of his little body. "It’s sweet! It’s…it’s…"

  "Heaven in a glass," Ryelle finished for him with a chuckle.

  Jake dove back into the dessert with single-minded determination. The other two watched him for a moment then looked at one another. Rose shrugged and Daniel gave a short nod. They both lifted chocolate laden spoons.

  "Breka’s beard," Daniel muttered after his first bite.

  "Don’t swear," Rose responded, but her tone was absent and her eyes were fixed on the stuff in the glass as if it was a strange and wonderful miracle.

  Ryelle grinned over her shoulder at Declan and saluted him with her spoon. He gave her a sour look but set down the tray and moved closer, standing with a hand on the back of her seat.

  "I’ll share mind with you," she whispered to him, amused and gratified by the twitch of his lips as he watched the children devour his creations.

  Declan ignored her suggestion, the twitch growing into a battle against a real smile. "Slow down, guys. You’ll give yourselves a nasty ice cream headache."

  Jake, who was almost to the bottom of his glass already, gave a pained ice cream cough before shoveling another spoonful into his mouth. "What’s a i’cream hedick?" he asked through the mouthful of dessert.

  Declan looked scandalized.

  Ryelle felt a sad smile tug at her lips and looked down at her glass to hide it. These children struck such a familiar cord in her. Freaks in any society, raised without normalcy, used without mercy. They could have been her at that age. If she had anything to say about it, their lives were about to undergo a radical change.

  Chapter 19

  Declan looked away from the strange, yet oddly familiar children and glanced down at Ryelle. She wasn’t finishing her shake, her body still as she stared into the glass. Studying her bent head, he suddenly understood it, realized why she was treating these GenTec telenetics with such kindness. She saw herself in them, saw her own weird childhood reenacted in the form of these three dangerous kids. "Oh, damn," he sighed, looking with new eyes at their prisoners.

  He didn’t want to see it. He wanted to keep thinking of them only as the enemy, as a danger posed to himself and all he cared about. But he remembered how Ryelle had reacted to his touch when they first met, how she had glowed with wonder over the most ordinary things. It had hurt him then to think of her so isolated and abused, raised without love or even simple compassion. These three children were created weapons and undoubtedly dangerous, but their wonder in experiencing simple ice cream struck a familiar cord. The GenTec were not known for kindness and even dangerous children deserved compassion.

  Declan grimaced, stubbornly resisting a tug of sympathy as he watched the small boy stare at Ryelle’s unfinished shake with a gleam in his midnight eyes while the other two studiously scraped the last few drops from their glasses. "They aren’t puppies you can just keep," he muttered to Ryelle in protest.

  She looked up at him with a curl of her lips, a mysterious luster in her magnetic dark eyes. "Of course not. Puppies would be a lot less complicated."

  He swore softly at the implication in her words and the look in her eyes, which made him more aware of the tingle of her power. The kiss across his skin was suddenly an unbearable temptation and he backed away from her with a burning indrawn breath. After their sexual marathon, he should be rung out, satiated and desensitized to any further stimulation, but he was starting to think he’d have to be dead before he stopped reacting to her. And for some reason the calm resolve he saw in her eyes turned him on almost as much as the hot lick of her power.

  The two older children were watching him quizzically and he brought himself back under control with an effort. "I think it’s time to get them to their new quarters—" Muffled thunder interrupted him and he felt the station shudder under his feet with a swift stab of trepidation. "What the hell was—?"

  This time, Ryelle’s talent interrupted him, sliding through him in a solid rush of sweet power. He groaned, staggering under the assault. This was no accidental brush of her ability or the seductive tangle of sensation he’d experienced last night when she’d wrapped around him. Her power rubbed over him and through him in forceful demand, not a teasing seductress, but a commanding dominatrix, taking what she wanted and pulling a response from him with her hot and merciless touch.

  "There’s been an explosion," she said in a tight voice. He felt the urgency in her tone but couldn’t understand the words through the firestorm of sensation in his body. He wanted to fall to his knees at her feet and beg for more. He wanted to drive her to the floor and take her with the same savage intent
she was using on him. He could do neither, because he was about to come, hard and fast.

  Then the wild rush of her power abruptly ceased and he staggered again, muscles quivering and body screaming for release. Bracing a hand on the wall, he gulped air and shuddered from his head to his toes.

  "Declan, I’m sorry. I didn’t think, reached right through you. Are you all right?"

  Ryelle was now behind him, at the door with the three children ranged around her. He could feel the tingle on his skin that said she was still using her talent, but the forceful river of her power was just out of reach.

  He swallowed hard, keeping his aching body turned away so he didn’t shock the kids. "I’ll live. What happened?"

  "There was an explosion in one of the cargo holds. I’ve contained the damage, stopped the loss of atmosphere, but there are injured down there. You need to—"

  "I’m on it," he barked as adrenaline cleared some of the quivering weakness out of his muscles. He lunged for the com unit, heart thumping a rhythm of dread in his chest. Connecting with main operations, he commanded, "Pete, report."

  "Aw, man, it’s a mess! There was some kinda blow, hull breach. Medical’s on the way, but I don’t know if they can—"

  "Tell them I’m on my way. Keep everybody but medical out of the area. Reinforce general quarters, damn it. Nobody should have been in cargo."

  "Yes, sir."

  Declan whirled toward the door, only to stop short when he caught sight of the eerily dark children. "Did you do this?" he snarled.

  Ryelle slipped in front of them, eyes narrowing on him. "You know they didn’t. I have them secured. Go do your job, Master Chief."

  Her protective stance did not escape his notice, but he couldn’t linger. Without another word he stalked out, wincing at the brush of her power when he passed her. He was going to have to get creative, if he wanted to be able to function in the affected area. She was obviously still working to secure the blast site and he wouldn’t be able to take another dose of that maddening, dominating touch. His skin was still hypersensitive in reaction to the first time and molten heat crawled through his groin in unfulfilled desperation.

  Calculating the angle of her location to the site of the explosion, he took a route that wouldn’t intersect with the direct line of her power. Once he was there, though, he had to stand back, directing the medical and security teams and assessing the damage from a distance.

  The explosion had taken out one of the cargo holds and the adjoining corridor. The resulting breach of atmosphere had nearly sucked two of his crew into space. Only Ryelle’s quick response to contain breathable air had saved them. Declan stared at the vast expanse of space beyond the blast site and the invisible bubble of Ryelle’s protection with a shudder of horror and fury. This had not been an accident. There had not been any explosive elements in the hold to cause a breach. Someone had attacked his station.

  He stalked to a com unit and connected with Ryelle’s quarters. "Are there any other GenTec on board?"

  "No, I just checked."

  "And their ships?"

  "No sign of activity. The GenTec didn’t do this."

  He ground his teeth together. "You’re sure the telenetics didn’t slip you?"

  "One hundred percent positive," she answered with a steady look that said she didn’t appreciate his lack of trust and confidence. "If you’re convinced that it wasn’t an accident, than it’s one of your own people, Declan."

  "That’s impossible," he snarled.

  Her lashes lowered, hiding her reaction. "I’ll contact the GenTec, feel them out. Let me know when you have more information and be careful, Declan. If this really was sabotage, there’s someone very dangerous running around your station."

  "You, too, lady. Don’t let down your guard."

  She nodded with solemn strain in her face and ended the connection.

  Declan gripped the edge of the com unit hard, fighting the sudden impulse to return to her side. She had the kids under control, she was watching the GenTec, and she was in the inner residential areas of the station. She wasn’t in danger. Yet he felt a prickle of foreboding on the back of his neck, an anxiety that urged him to keep her in his sight. The last time they’d been in a combat situation, she’d slipped out of his grasp and he hadn’t seen her again for fifteen years.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned and gestured for his head of security to approach. "Mick, what’s the status?"

  "Med team’s cleared out. Two injured personnel, one of my own and a crewman who says he was following somebody suspicious. He’s got a leg wound, nothing serious, and as soon as he’s patched up, I’ll get the detail. My people are picking through the remains, but no solid evidence of explosives. Scans show a focused blast pattern, though. Suggests a manmade incendiary." He paused, flicking an uncertain look at the ragged edges of the blasted cargo hold. "Ah, any idea how long the telenetic can hold back vacuum, sir?"

  "As long as you need her to. Gather what evidence you can and meet me in medical. I’m going to question that crewman." Declan turned away then hesitated. "Good work, Mick," he said over his shoulder.

  The older man’s face lightened a bit with gratitude. "Thanks, MC. We ain’t Elite, but we’ll get the job done for you."

  Declan gave the man a grim smile and nod before heading toward the infirmary. Mick and his security personnel had done their best over the past few weeks, but they weren’t trained or equipped to handle GenTec or bombers. He knew he was asking too much of them, but they were all he had.

  In the infirmary, the medical staff was scurrying around one victim ensconced in a gel tube. He could only see the woman’s head but had a sinking feeling that those blistering burns on her face were just the beginning. On another bed, a man sat with his leg raised on a support as a med officer bent over it. He was awake and aware, forehead creased with pain and concern as he glanced over at the burn victim. Declan recognized him as one of the supply ship pilots.

  "Ventura, right?" he asked as he approached the bed. The med officer made a warning sound in her throat but didn’t look up from her work. The leg had an ugly gash along the calf, though there was minimal bleeding.

  "Yes, sir. Hell of a thing," Ventura said, gesturing toward the gel tube and the urgently moving medical staff.

  "Tell me what happened."

  Ventura shook his head, blinking reddened eyes as he stared at his wounded leg. "I saw somebody. I think it was a guy, bigger body, but I can’t be sure ‘cause he was wrapped up. The way he moved wasn’t right. He kept looking around and acting all…sneaky."

  "Sneaky?"

  "Yeah, edging around corners and checking coms before going through doors. Just up to no good. I thought maybe we had a thief goin’ after the supply. Pissed me off some. We had to go through hell to bring that supply in, y’know?"

  "I know. So what happened?"

  "I followed him t’see what he’d do. Pretty tricky, when there’s general quarters and nobody else in the halls. Had to hang back a ways and almost lost him once, ‘fore I caught up. Lost him again and the world went boom. I thought I was gone. Everything rushed by me and man, I thought I was gone. Space is so black." He shuddered, tucking his arms around his middle and rocking a bit. "Then everything stopped. Just stopped. Did your netter do that?"

  "Telenetic Soliere put a seal up, yes. You don’t look burned." Declan glanced over his shoulder at the woman in the gel tube to underscore his statement.

  Ventura shrugged. "I musta been further away than her. I was in the corridor, close to the next bulkhead. I remember this awful thump and the walls fell apart. Something shoved me off my feet then picked me up and sucked me at the hole where the walls used to be. Never felt so helpless, man. I don’t even remember how that happened," he added, gesturing at his leg. "I didn’t feel it ‘til later."

  "What did you do when everything stopped?"

  "I don’t know, prayed, I guess. Then I started crawlin’ through the wreckage. Didn’t get very far when medical showed
up."

  Declan nodded, leaning against the bed and folding his arms over his chest. "This person you saw. What was he wrapped in?"

  "I’m no good with clothes. I guess it was like a dress or a robe, with a scarf for his head. Coulda been a woman, I guess, but didn’t move like one."

  "Color of the clothes? Height? Weight?"

  "Dark stuff, coulda been blue or black. ‘Bout your height, sir, but not as heavy."

  "Any distinguishing features? Walks with a limp, wears boots, any accessories or hardware…"

  Ventura shook his head with a grimace of regret. "Sorry, sir. All wrapped up like that, I couldn’t see much. Just didn’t like the attitude."

  "Sneaky."

  "Yeah."

  "All right, thanks, Ventura. Head of security will be by soon and run you through it again. If you think of anything else, let him know."

  "Yes, sir. Hey, will you thank the telenetic for me? She saved my life." The man’s eyes were puffy, bloodshot, and filled with gratitude.

  Declan nodded, patted his shoulder, and turned away, watching the buzz around the gel tube with a grim clench in his stomach. Shadowing one of the med staff, he asked, "Is she going to make it?"

  "Still touchy," the slim man clipped, not slowing his pace or looking at Declan. "If we pull her through, she’ll need a lot of reconstruction."

  Declan backed away, giving them room to work. As he turned for the door, distant thunder sounded again and the station shivered in response. His heart leaped into his throat and he lunged for the com unit, making the connection that was most vital to him. "Ryelle!" he shouted.

  "I’m here," she answered and he nearly sagged to his knees at the sight of her pale and worried face. "Oh, Declan, I’m sorry, but that was one of your wormhole generators."

  "Generators can be fixed," he rasped, ignoring the twinge of pain in his chest. "Was anyone hurt?"

  "No one. I’m holding it like the first, so it’s safe enough for now. Declan, the GenTec know something."