by Debra Jess
Darvik kept sawing even as he glanced over at Sorinestro, who wilted at the news. Damn the Guardians, Stovis must be talking about Sorinestro's son. Sure, Darvik had wanted the boy to learn a lesson, but it was impossible to learn when one was dead. He had hoped the idiot would have been smart enough to ditch the tracker.
As angry as he was at the kid, knowing how he died made Darvik saw harder until he broke the bonds. He twisted just enough in Naz's direction while Naz twisted toward him. As if they'd practiced this maneuver many times before, Darvik got the blade into Naz's hands. The rest of his pirates still had guns to their heads, but at least he'd have backup soon.
Whatever Kelra had in mind, he had to be ready to act on this own. To his benefit, the guards standing off to the side, keeping their eyes on the puppets, were starting to show signs of the Z-nip Mayla had slipped into their drinks. One of them yawned without trying to hide it. Another one stared into space, blissfully unaware of what was going on around them.
"You threatened Stovis?" Kelra asked Silt. "One of my squad leaders?"
"My squad leader, but not for much longer. You!" Silt snapped at the yawning guard near the puppets. "Arrest this one."
"Stay where you are, Joxan." Kelra's anger made her words louder, sharper. "I remember you too. I never once assigned you to the kitchen because not even a rattus would eat your scrambled eggs."
Joxan could barely acknowledge her words before yawning again. Kelra didn't notice because she pushed passed Silt. He started to grab her, but she brushed him off as if waving away a pesky diptera.
Naz bumped Darvik again, passing the blade back into his hands. Naz was free, but Darvik was the fighter, so Naz would back him up, but not lead the charge. All they could do now was wait for a signal from Kelra. But what was she up to?
"Norin, Thortis, Sopost." Those were the three guards standing over Rusa, Johza, and Mirin. "I'm glad to see the three of you too. Thortis, are you still dating Cilesta from navigation?"
"Married her, ma'am."
"I'm glad to hear it." Kelra turned to Silt. "You see, Hyeph, I remember their names. The reason I remember them is because they matter. When I was captain, they carried out my orders because they trusted me to make the right decisions. I protect those who matter, who step up to do what's right, who challenge me to be better than what I was. You…I don't remember you. Maybe we did have an affair. Maybe you're lying to soothe your bruised ego because I declined your invitation. Or maybe you invented this affair and convinced yourself it was real. It doesn't matter. I don't know who you are, and you've done nothing to make me trust you."
"But you'd trust him." Silt waved his gun in Darvik's direction. "A pirate from a family of pirates, thieves who steal from Unity citizens, from the company that educated you and paid for your commission?"
Kelra smiled but didn't take her eyes off Silt. "Cordova Station. I tracked the Queen of Hearts to Cordova. I intended to catch Hart in the act of piracy. It would look better for Manitac and Unity if I could record his attempt to raid a civilian station. But that's not what happened. Instead, the Queen of Hearts docked with the intention of restocking her supplies. There was never going to be a raid. Hart pays for his crew’s needs. When I arrived and informed the director of who was on his station, he panicked. Instead of listening to me, he sounded the evacuation alarm. In their haste to depart, a freighter slammed into the sick bay, which had also launched from the station.” As she recounted the events of that encounter, she stalked slowly toward Silt, showing not even a hint of fear.
Darvik wanted to reach out and stop her, keep her out of harm’s way, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose to trust her and waited.
Her gaze remained fixed on Silt as she went on. "Darvik Hart could have taken the Queen of Hearts and made a run for it, but he didn't. He used the Queen to rescue the sick bay while I handled the damaged ship. Hundreds could have died, but no one did. That's when I decided I could trust him. So instead of arresting him and his pirates, I made the strategic decision to let him go."
She still wouldn't look at him, but he kept his gaze on her. How powerful, self-assured, and absolutely in control she was. His heart swelled with pride.
Kelra’s gaze raked over Silt with disdain. "You sad, pathetic creature. Everything you have, I gave to you, and you squandered it on pursuing me."
There was the sneer Darvik had seen when he first bribed the son-of-a-beast for information. Silt poked a boney finger into Kelra's chest, but she didn't react. Maybe he'd heard the stories of how dangerous she was when threatened and wanted to test her. He had no idea of what he was setting himself up for.
"You gave me nothing!” Silt roared. “You stole my place at the head of the class. You stole my place as first captain of the Silt. Well, you're not going to steal the Majesty of the Stars or the Queen of Hearts from me. I will be the one to bring both of those ships back to the Unity Homeport in triumph."
With every accusation, Silt jabbed her. She still didn't flinch, or blink, or signal Darvik in any way. If it had been Rusa or Johza, he would have attacked by now, but this was Kelra. He just needed to be patient.
Silt stood there, his breath tangling in Kelra's hair. "I'm going to kill you slowly. I've made plans to scrape your skin from your muscles before tearing them off your bones. I'll make sure everyone on this ship can hear you—"
Kelra raised her hands, which glowed bright yellow tinged with red, and grabbed both sides of Silt’s head. His face started to melt, he screamed, and then his head exploded all over the bridge before his body fell to the floor. No one twitched while Kelra turned in a circle, making sure everyone got a good look at her glowing hands.
"Stovis," she said. "I suggest you and your squad retreat to the Silt."
Stovis swallowed hard. It took him a moment to wipe some of the blood from his decon mask, but then he ordered a general retreat.
As the Silt crew left the Queen, Darvik made his way toward Kelra. Though he didn’t understand what he’d just seen, it didn’t matter. As he approached, her hands powered down, the glow disappearing.
"Kelra. Kelra, look at me."
She turned. Only now, so close to her did he see what he hadn’t seen across the room.
Her eyes were full of stars.
“It is you, isn’t it?” he whispered.
With a nod, those strange eyes softened, filled with emotion that convinced him it truly was her. She stood on tiptoe so she could whisper in his ear.
"Get me out of here. Bring me somewhere isolated and quiet."
Naz had begun removing the restraints from his bridge crew and checking them for injuries. With one hand signal, Darvik put Rusa in charge and then wrapped his arms around Kelra and escorted her off the bridge.
Chapter Forty-One
"You brought me to the black room?" All around her, instruments she'd only heard about hung from the dark walls or spread across surgical-style grav-resisters. The overhead light created deep shadows, emphasizing the darkness and creating a terrifying atmosphere within the room.
"You said isolated and quiet." Instead of sitting her down on the chair with the restraints hanging off it, Darvik lowered her to the floor, next to a wall so they both had support from behind.
With her head tilted back against his shoulder, she could close her eyes and forget where she was. "I guess I did say that. Have you ever used it?"
"Only twice, believe it or not. Usually, when I drag someone down here, they start babbling before anything happens. It's more for show, or like I told Ezick, for extreme circumstances."
"Ummmm." Her headache lessened the more Darvik spoke, as if his words could calm the chaotic sense of “mission accomplished” mixed with the horror of what she had just done. "What would you consider extreme circumstances?"
"Dealing with Hyeph Silt."
Good to know, but she had to stop thinking because the voices were talking to her again. So many voices. Somewhere in there, her parents talked. If she could hear them and only them, it would
be such a comfort.
"Kelra."
She opened her eyes.
"Look at me."
She did without question. What she told Silt was true. She did love Darvik because she trusted him, not the other way around. He raised her chin so he could gaze at her without scrunching down.
"Have you seen yourself in a mirror?" he asked.
"Why? Do I have Silt in my hair?"
"Now you're worried about your hair?" The quirk of his mouth made it clear he was trying to lighten the situation.
She wanted to laugh at his outrage. How funny that when he first pulled her off Ruintalos, she didn't even have any hair.
"It's your eyes." His hands, those huge hands, both strong and gentle, cupped her face. "They're full of stars."
"Oh, that. I saw them before I boarded the shuttle. You can see the aliens too?"
"I guess I do. What happened on the Majesty of the Stars? How did you…how did the cloud get inside you? Does it hurt? Maybe we can get it out…"
She shook her head, but the voices got louder, so she quieted them by keeping still. "My parents are inside me. All the survivors of the supernova that created the nebula are in there. It's so strange because most of them aren't human, but my parents are there, along with the other passengers." She paused because the tears hovering just at the corners of her eyes started to spill. “I can hear my parents. It’s what I’ve wanted ever since I was six. My whole life has been about avenging their deaths, but instead I got them back. The aliens didn’t understand what they were doing. They don’t need spaceships or slipstreams to travel. They travel together inside the cloud. Our ship’s engines hurt it when they passed too close. It only wanted to stop the pain. It killed their bodies, but absorbed their…I don’t know for sure. Their souls maybe? The aliens understand now what they did wrong. My parents told them, but it can’t give them back their bodies. It can only give them mine so we can live and travel together.”
Darvik dropped his hands from her face. "I don't even know what to say to that."
"I have my parents back, Darvik. You of all people know how much of my wounds have healed." She lowered her head to his chest, settling back into his arms, which he closed around her.
"What will happen to them? The aliens, I mean," he asked as he brushed her hair off her face.
She shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing I guess. I'll go about my life as I normally would have. When I die, they'll be released."
"Will you join them?"
"Only if I can take you with me." She raised her head to look at him face-to-face. "I want to stay with you for the rest of my life, Darvik. I'll stay here on the Queen of Hearts. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you by my side. I don't have a mission anymore. I don't have a purpose. I love you, and I will sacrifice anything to make us work."
He gave her a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. "I love you too, and I think having you on board is an asset, but there are two things I'm concerned about."
"Name them." She laid her head back down so his heartbeat in her ear as he talked.
"You need a purpose of your own. After fulfilling your lifelong dream, you can't just stop living, not even for me. We need to find you a new mission, or you're going to start to resent this arrangement. I won't lose you to boredom."
How kind of him to recognize her need to have a life of her own, but still… "I don’t have any answers right now, but I promise you, we'll figure it out together. What's the second thing?" He didn’t say anything at first, so she raised her head again. Dear Guardians, was he blushing?
"I'm not a prude, but the idea of making love with you while your parents and a billion aliens watch makes me feel uncomfortable."
Oh ho, how that made her laugh. "They're not watching. It's not like they’re in my head with a holo screen."
"But they are aware of where you’re going and what you’re doing."
How could she explain something she didn't understand herself? "I don't think it’s like that. They're still living beings who can sleep or shut down. When I was shuttling over here, I didn't feel them at all. It wasn't until Silt started threatening me that they started to talk to me, telling me to use their power. I could sense them taking over my body, getting ready to fight."
"And your glowing hands—was that them or you?"
"I think it was a combination of both. They knew I was under threat, so they showed me how to use their power. Once I learn how to control it, it'll be my power to share with them. Or the other way around, maybe."
Darvik nodded but said nothing else, so she took advantage of the quiet to snuggle into his arms. She would have stayed there forever, but after a while, he rubbed her back.
“As much as I want to keep you alone with me, I think we both could use a shower.”
“I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard in a while.” Darvik helped her to stand, slipping his arms around her waist. She clasped one of his hands in hers, but then pulled away. “I didn’t realize how sticky I am.”
He laughed, low and quiet. It didn’t take long before they were both naked under a deluge of steamy water. Darvik scrubbed her from her nose to her toes, getting rid of any evidence of Silt on her body. She tried to return the favor with the same amount of vigor, but her energy waned, so Darvik finished cleaning himself. Once they dried off, his ear jack chimed from where it sat near the sink.
"What is it?"
"The current captain of the Silt wants to speak with Kelra."
He looked down at her, but she didn't need words to know what he was asking, so she nodded.
"Give us a few minutes. We'll return to the bridge." Darvik shut down the comm. "Rusa wouldn't interrupt us if it wasn't important."
"Do you think I scared them?"
"I think you scared everyone, including me."
That wasn't the answer she was looking for, but it would have to do. Once they were back on the bridge, Rusa raised the holo screen. All around her, puppets cleaned up the remains of Silt, but she noticed that Ezick, Sorinestro, and his two men were helping. The other pirates had either retreated to their quarters to clean up or returned to their duties elsewhere on the ship.
Kelra kept her arm around Darvik's waist, trying not to think about what she'd done. Rusa activated the holo, and Kelra recognized her former second-in-command.
"Fletch. It's been a while."
"Yes, it has, Captain."
She shook her head. "I'm not a captain anymore. Just a prisoner on the run.” She paused and looked at Darvik for a moment, giving him a smile. “And soon-to-be pirate." Darvik’s huge smile confirmed the welcome to his pirate family.
"You'll always be the first captain of the Silt," Fletch said, bringing her attention back to him.
"Nice of you to say so. What can I do for you?"
If Fletch were bothered by what had happened to Silt, he didn't show it. "Since we're currently without a captain, we were wondering if you would consider returning?"
What? Return to Manitac's private navy? "No offense you to, Fletch, but returning to Manitac’s navy is not going to happen while I have a breath left in my body."
"Actually, with Silt dead, most of us are going to defect to the Shadows."
Of all the shocking things Fletch could have said, that plasma burst wasn't one of them. "Why now? I never got the sense that you were unhappy with the way Manitac ran things. Who else wants to defect?"
"Almost all of us. Ever since Silt took command, morale has plummeted. You were an anomaly among Manitac officers. You knew how to command. You actually cared about your crew. I've been working overtime trying to clean up every mess Silt left behind. As it is, I have almost two dozen former Manitac guards from Ruintalos living in the puppet quarters because Silt ordered their execution for losing you. I also managed to save a kid he wanted to eject into space from the garage chute."
"My son?" Sorinestro dropped his scrub brush and near ran Darvik over to get closer to the holo. "You saved my son?"
"Yes, I believ
e we did. He's recovered physically from his experience, but there's going to be some long-term trauma. I can have him brought to the bridge."
Sorinestro looked as if he were going to cry.
Fletch turned back to Kelra. "My point is, Silt made most of us rethink our pledge to serve a corporation because there are more within it like him, a lot more. With him dead and the autonomous nature of the Calypso arm, we figured this is the best time to disappear with the Silt."
Kelra glanced at Darvik, confused about this sudden choice she had to make. "I…need to think about this."
"No, you don't." Darvik tightened his arm around her waist. "You need the Silt. This is it, your new mission. You were born to captain that ship."
"But they want to join the Shadows. If they wanted to fly under the same flag as the Queen of Hearts as pirates, that's one thing. We'd be invincible with both the Queen of Hearts and the Silt, but that's not what they want."
Darvik surveyed the bridge, a strange faraway look in his eye. Then he turned back to her. "True, but it's what you want. The Shadows need you and the Silt. You should join them."
"I won't leave you."
"You won't be because I'll be going with you."
"You're going to leave the Queen of Hearts? Darvik, this ship is everything to you."
"The Iron Heart was everything to me. It's gone, and I can't get it back. I love this ship, true, but I love you too, and if my ancestors could sacrifice the security offered by Unity to head off into the stars to avoid the laws they would never agree to obey, then I can sacrifice my captaincy to join you with the Shadows."
Her throat tightened. "What about Nazaniel? Ezick? The puppets?"
Darvik turned to look at Fletch on the holo. "Here's what we're going to do. The Queen of Hearts has a standing offer to travel to Jarvis Station in the Dawn system. The Shadows have established a free colony there, and the director has asked us about our puppets. I say we travel together and once we're there, we'll sort things out with our…personnel."
Fletch rubbed his chin, an endearing quality Kelra remembered about him. "I agree to these terms. There are a few diehards we've had to lock up. We'll free them at Dawn's Landing and see that they get transportation back to Unity."