by Rhonda Mason
“No bodies either, though.” Which meant Malkor counted twelve hostiles on the ship his team now called home.
“Ida insists they are harmless. In her words, ‘Hide mostly. Burrow, carve out dens in the walls. Stockpile.’”
That sounded exactly like soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, living in fear of capture, waiting for their moment. It was what they would do when they felt their moment for action had come that set him on edge.
“Is this level secure?” He sure as frutt wasn’t bunking his people here otherwise.
Tia’tan nodded. “The maglifts only open if you have those RFID badges, same with the cabin doors. One of us is always in the control room, monitoring vidfeeds and the like.”
It would have to do, for the moment. First things first, though. “Let’s get those bullpups.”
“We’ll have to speak to the captain.”
“I won’t take no for an answer.”
Tia’tan nodded approvingly. “Good.”
* * *
Vayne normally avoided the commissary any time he thought it might be inhabited. Tonight, though, as he headed there side by side with Kayla, he didn’t give the coming meal a second thought.
He’d spent so many years thinking she was dead, or worse— that she had abandoned him. With their future together stretching out before them now that she was here, for the first time in a long time Vayne felt a quiet ember of optimism.
But things were not perfect. Her psi powers were lost, for one thing. For another, she had witnessed a part of his torture at Dolan’s hands, and even without psi powers, she sensed his continued suffering under PTSD. With their psi bond severed, the healing they needed to give each other would be… more difficult.
“You’re doing it again,” he said, when from the corner of his eye he saw Kayla glance at him.
“Ha!”she laughed at herself. “Busted. I have the overwhelming urge to poke you just to reassure myself you’re real.”
He returned her smile. “I promise not to vanish in a puff of smoke if you promise the same.”
“Done.”
While the scrutiny of the others made his skin crawl, her concern was comfortable and familiar. Ro’haars and il’haars were alert to any distress in their other half; were always ready to help.
They arrived at the commissary to find it full, and despite Kayla at his side, he hesitated on the threshold when all eyes focused on him. She entered first, screening him from scrutiny while he gathered himself. Just one more way she protected him. After a moment, conversations interrupted by their arrival continued and the awkwardness passed.
A buffet was laid out on the counter, the fresh food courtesy of Cinni’s final visit. They helped themselves, and he followed Kayla’s lead as she led them to where her IDC agent and his second in command sat talking with Tia’tan and Noar. Uncle Ghirhad was having a lively discussion with Ida and Benny at another table, and as usual, Natali sat alone, working through correspondence from Ordoch.
Kayla laid a hand on Malkor’s shoulder as she passed, pausing no longer than a second before choosing one of two seats left between the IDC group and the Wyrds. Still, that one second of contact conveyed a wealth of emotion.
Why, my dear Vayne, Dolan whispered in his mind. Jealous?
Vayne tamped down the voice and sat beside her, next to Tia’tan. The instant Tia’tan looked his way, eyes full of concern, the events of this morning flooded back.
Her voice—I don’t want to hurt you. His face, slammed against his door as she subdued him. If he could have fled the commissary without making an even bigger ass of himself, he would have done it.
Tia’tan gave him a smile and he dropped his eyes to his plate. Shame killed his appetite, but he shoveled the food in anyway. The sooner done, the sooner gone.
::It’s forgotten.:: Tia’tan’s quiet psi voice entered his mind, along with a brush of reassurance.
Forgotten? Not for him. Never for him.
The IDC agents were speaking to each other, the guttural sound of whatever imperial language they spoke at odds with the fluid accents of ancient Ordochian coming from Ida and Benny. Vayne listened to Malkor speak, as much for distraction as for curiosity. The man used the same phonemes over and over; what did they have, like, five consonants in their alphabet? When Kayla replied in the same harsh tones, Vayne’s skin crawled.
She lived in hiding in the empire for years, he reminded himself. Learning to speak it like a native would have solidified her cover. Still, the knowledge chafed.
Of course her lover would enjoy it…
Still silently eating while the others conversed, Vayne studied Malkor. Kayla dominated any room she entered on Ordoch, being among the tallest women, but Malkor topped her by at least fifteen centimeters. His form was hulking and brutish. With the aggressive set of his shoulders and the square jaw, he looked ready to erupt into violence in a millisecond. And, he sat much, much too close to Kayla for Vayne’s comfort.
Not that she couldn’t kick the man’s ass, if it came to that.
It was worrisome that Malkor had brought his octet with him to follow after Kayla. It would be that much harder to get rid of him, once Kayla’s freak fascination with the man wore off.
* * *
Kayla caught the disgusted look on Vayne’s face and broke off speaking. What was he thinking? Damn her broken psi powers. They could have had entire conversations in seconds with thoughts and emotions, if only she weren’t so damaged. She arched a brow in silent question, all she could do at the moment, and Vayne merely shook his head in response.
To be discussed later, or not at all?
“How is the construction of the hyperstream drive coming on?” Malkor asked Noar. He spoke in Imperial Common, which Tia’tan and her team had learned before journeying to Falanar for the Empress Game. Vayne, Natali, and their uncle had no such knowledge, she’d learned today. They’d had little use for it while Dolan kept them locked up like animals. Malkor and the octet could understand at least modern Ordochian with their translator implants; she’d have to shuttle back to the Lorius to grab more translator bots for her family.
Something Natali and Vayne would just love.
“The last structural beam is in place,” Noar replied. “According to Larsa, it’s time for a long series of stress tests on the entire thing. If it can’t hold, there’s no point in continuing with the finer elements of the drive.”
Kayla nodded. “Makes sense.”
“The resulting vibrations from the tests could rock much of the ship.” He thought for a moment. “That’s assuming something doesn’t break loose and tear the engine room open like a can opener.”
“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence.”
Neither did the look on his face—it was far too cautious for her liking.
“Well, with the hodgepodge of parts we have available to us, I’d say the odds are… thirty to seventy.”
“A thirty percent chance of success?” Malkor asked.
“Thirty percent chance it blows to pieces.”
“And two percent chance of total annihilation,” Tia’tan quipped, grinning.
With my ro’haars on board? Kayla ground her teeth. “Not even remotely funny.”
“Do not be despairing,” Captain Janus called from the other table. She grinned. “ Yari sustaining through five hundred years of life, she will be sustaining through this. No fear of odds, you can be trusting me.” Clearly, the captain was one hundred percent confident in her statement. “And Benny to agree!” Ida clapped her second in command on the shoulder, and her cheerful attitude spurred even the cautious Benny to smile.
Kayla liked the positive attitude, but she was quickly learning that Ida was positive about almost everything. Her natural state, or a slightly manic euphoria brought on by too many years in a cryopod?
“Captain,” Malkor said when the discussion of the ship’s soundness had ended, “my octet and I need to be outfitted with plasma weapons right away. I understand t
hey’re currently locked against our RFIDs.”
Someone—Tia’tan?—must have translated Malkor’s words for Ida telepathically, because the captain’s good humor dimmed. She turned her gaze to Malkor, acknowledging him for the first time since the conversation started, but did not immediately reply. If the less than pleased expression on her second in command’s face was any indication, he was giving her a mind-full about his thoughts on that request.
“Having your own weapons, I see,” Ida said, gesturing to the ion pistol on Malkor’s hip.
“Which can be ineffective against a psi shield, if the Wyrd is focused.”
Hekkar added, “As you well know, captain.”
Kayla held her tongue as the tension kicked up a notch. If Malkor was to have any position of respect on this ship, he needed to win a confrontation with the crew directly, without her facilitating it.
Ida squared off against the imperials, seeming to evaluate each in a harsh light. With access to bullpups, the octet could— if they suddenly went homicidal—take out Ida and her team.
Ida finally said, “I to think on it.”
Malkor shook his head. “I will not have my people ineffectively armed against the threat your stepa at es present.”
Ida’s face darkened—clearly now was not the time to bring up her deranged crew members.
“Ariel is in the command room, correct?” Malkor asked.
“She is.”
“Please contact her at this time and have weapons permissions added to my team’s RFIDs. We will each claim one bullpup, and I assure you,” he said with total conviction, “that my agents will die before allowing them to fall into the hands of the stepa.”
Another silent conversation between Ida and Benny, Kayla was certain. Ida remained silent for so long that Kayla nearly jumped in to support Malkor’s request. It galled her to see him treated so suspiciously.
At last Ida nodded once. “It is done.” She immediately left the table and the commissary, followed by Benny.
Tia’tan blew out a breath. “Wasn’t that fun?” She gave Malkor and Hekkar a grin. “Your first victory among us: well done.”
Kayla decided it was time to switch topics. “As far as the hyperstream drive construction is concerned—isn’t it all academic, considering that we don’t have the fuel to power such a massive engine?”
“The Radiant has the fuel,” Tia’tan said, looking a little grim.
“The Radiant would be here by now if it had survived arrival in the Mine Field.” Noar’s voice was gentle, but he didn’t sugar-coat the truth. No one but Tia’tan held out hope of the Ilmenan fuel carrier miraculously appearing.
“There’s no way the rebels on Ordoch can procure the vast amounts needed,” Noar continued.
“Could we get some from an imperial world?” Malkor asked.
Kayla shook her head. “Different fuels. Wyrd hyperstream drives are powered alternatively.”
The reality of their situation, and the overwhelming odds they faced, lay like a pall across the room. In the depressing quiet, Vayne stood up, the plate in his hand still half full. Kayla stood automatically, a ro’haar tuned to her il’haar’s movements. They might be mid-conversation with a group of friends, but if Vayne felt he needed to leave, it was time to go.
Malkor looked first to Vayne, then up at her. He arched a brow as if to say, Seriously? You have to go at this exact moment?
“You can fill me in later,” she said. She dumped her plate into the reclamator and followed Vayne through the door without looking back.
3
FALANAR CITY
Seated in the sun parlor attached to her apartments at the imperial palace, Isonde sipped her guqu tea, ignoring the rest of her breakfast entirely. It wasn’t the food that made her nauseated—it was the morning’s news vids.
It wasn’t much past dawn, but even in the pale morning the stained-plascrystal window lit up, painting oceans of light across the floor. Piece after tiny piece of translucent plascrystal was placed in a silver setting to depict Falanar’s tropical sea in living detail. The masterwork craft, so intricate that she couldn’t appreciate the true genius of it, usually soothed her nerves. Not so, today.
She irritably tapped the toe of her slipper against the table leg and took another sip of tea. The bellbirds nesting in the orangery chirped their joy at waking to another day, but their sound couldn’t drown the voices of the reporters on the vidscreen.
The words UPSET IN THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN SENDS EMPRESS-APPARENT FLEEING scrolled across the bottom, while Eloy—easily her least favorite talking head on the political beat—managed to make footage of Isonde leaving the palace last evening look like a crisis.
In an unprecedented move, the Council of Seven has voted to allow two nonmembers to attend council sessions. General Elmain Wickham and IDC Senior Commander Jersain Vega will attend biweekly, giving their reports on everything from the war breaking out among the Protectorate Planets to the progress of Operation Redouble. Insiders say the decision was made by the emperor, without a vote by the other members. Jules Michenstoc, leading scholar on the Imperial Articles of Confederation, confirms that this is within the emperor’s right as head of the council.
At least one member was furious with the decision. Empress-Apparent Isonde Veriley was seen storming from the imperial palace after the decision was announced.
Even she had to admit that she looked like she’d been drinking battery acid. That would teach her to school her expression more carefully anytime she was out of doors.
Sources close to Veriley say she interrupted proceedings of the council, spewed a brief tirade, and left, aborting the rest of the council session.
“Utter bullshit,” she muttered at the news vid. That piece of propaganda had apparently been fabricated since last night’s reports. “And where is the speculation about why Vega was chosen, when she isn’t officially on the IDC leadership team?” Not to mention the furious reactions of everyone else on the council that wasn’t in on the emperor’s plans.
The tea tasted as flat as her mood, and she set it aside. She would have to do some serious damage control, considering that she’d gone from being labeled “most progressive” member of the council to the pettiest in a single day.
The gentle schnick of the conservatory door closing caught her attention a moment before Ardin’s voice reached her.
“Why are you still watching this nonsense?”
His unexpected presence caught her off guard. In the wordless cold war between them, she had claimed the conservatory as her personal sanctuary; he had yet to violate her unspoken claim.
If she thought his presence here this morning signified a thawing in their relationship—which had been in a deep freeze since she publicly denounced Malkor in order to retain her seat on the council—the brittleness of his tone quickly disabused her of the notion.
“Aren’t there more constructive things you could be doing?” His gaze took in her dishabille. She’d come straight from bed, after throwing on a robe and grabbing some files, not bothering to put herself together yet. In contrast, he looked as neat as a soldier on the parade ground. In a brief moment of pettiness, she hated him for the advantage.
Ardin didn’t take a seat at the table, instead preferring to stand and loom over her from his greater height. She refused to be challenged by this.
“How can you not watch it?” she countered. “What is more important to our cause right now than this sabotage of my—and by association, your—image? The journalists have undermined my legitimacy as a council member in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’m too focused on the rising sentiment that the time has come to force the Wyrds to create a TNV cure for us by releasing the plague on Ordoch?”
“What?”
He approached the table and reached past her to take possession of the controller, and then switched to a different newsfeed, this one out of Wei-lu-Wei.
The onscreen reporter stood amid a
mass of agitated people, each covered in a hodgepodge of protective medical gear. The demonstrators wore everything from respirator masks to organoplastic surgical gowns and underwater dive helmets— anything to keep themselves safe from the rapid spread of the TNV across their planet. The reporter herself was clothed from head to toe in a suit of tissue-thin, copper-colored metal, one of the only known barriers to the virus. Only her eyes were visible through a tiny slice of glass, and adding even that slim weakness was a huge risk.
The crowd around her posed a significant threat as well. She’d be lucky to make it out of there without being attacked, beaten, and robbed of the precious suit.
Her voice came across clearly despite the cacophony, piped as it was from her mouthpiece.
“I’m here in Ngyehn Square in Wei-lu-Wei’s sovereign city, Itzu-Feng. With me are thousands of people who have come out in support of the Alliance for Justice, once considered a radical group, and their call to release the TNV on the Wyrd World Ordoch. The Alliance hopes that such an extreme action will finally force Ordochian scientists to formulate a cure.”
She raised the microphone she held and angled it toward the fierce woman beside her.
“Fa Han, what do you think of the Alliance’s plan?”
“It’s no more than the Wyrds deserve. They have the technology to help us and they’ve refused, staying safe on their world while our people continue to die by the millions.”
“What do you say to people who claim it would be an act of terrorism?”
“We’ve been too nice to them. If we want to save our empire, it’s time to give them a taste of what we’ve been suffering.”
The woman went on to list all that she and her friends and neighbors had lost since the TNV outbreak on Wei-lu-Wei. Ardin shut down the vidscreen.
“‘Too nice?’” Isonde couldn’t believe it. “We invade their world, murder their rulers, set up an occupation, and foist problems of our own on to them as if they had some obligation to help us, and we’ve been ‘too nice?’”