by Rhonda Mason
It was ironic that their attempts to protect the weapons by loading them onto hovercarts and moving them, was what had made it possible for the stepa to steal them at all.
Good times.
“At least we’re almost done with this,” Kayla said on yet another trip down to the zero-g levels. Tia’tan and the others had continued their work at other armories while they had been enjoying their ‘homecoming.’ “I bet we can collect the last of them if each team works through the night.”
Fine by him. Otherwise he’d have no excuse for putting Tia’tan off. She’d asked how the visit to Ordoch had gone, and he’d said he would discuss it with her later. Well, later had come and gone and he still wasn’t ready to discuss what it felt like to return home. He and Kayla hadn’t even talked about it in all the hours since they’d been back on the Yari.
That didn’t stop him from feeling like a jerk for not at least bringing Tia’tan up to speed on the details of the rebellion’s progress. They’d become something of a team since escaping Falanar months ago, and dealing with the craziness on the ship since then. It was natural that he share with her what he learned. And he would. Just… later.
Kayla set the maglocks on the three hovercarts to lock them to the armory floor. He released the tie-downs on the nearest weapons crate before floating it over to start the loading process all over again. Kayla’s voice caught his attention, but it was only her speaking in the guttural language of the imperials. The octet leader comming her again? Vayne hadn’t bothered with one of their translator bots today, so he couldn’t understand her reply. Considering she ended the conversation in about two seconds, it probably hadn’t been what the guy wanted to hear.
“Still avoiding him?” Vayne asked her.
She kept her eyes locked on her task. “The octet was just checking in with status updates.”
Maybe. But it hadn’t escaped his notice that she hadn’t taken even a minute to greet her IDC agent before getting to work.
“Besides, I’m not avoiding him. We’re both busy.”
“Right,” he said, and this time she shot him a look before getting back to work.
“It’s just that—” her growl of frustration sounded over their one-to-one helmet comms. “It’s overwhelming. The reality of it all.”
“The occupation?”
“That, but also the knowledge that we really can go home. I stood on Ordoch today. Only a few months ago that would have been impossible. It might not be quite the home I remember, but it’s still home.”
Vayne secured another crate to the cart. “That bunker felt like home to you?”
“A lot more than the slums of an imperial backworld did.” She paused in her work of loading the small arms into their containers. “I can’t get my head around it. The feeling in my chest when we were standing there, surrounded by our people. Natali…” Kayla looked up at him. “She was magnificent, wasn’t she?”
He recognized the awe in her eyes; it was the same feeling harbored in his chest. “She was.”
“I don’t want to share that feeling, yet. Not with an outsider.”
And Malkor certainly was that. Even Tia’tan, Wyrd though she was, couldn’t be a part of this moment. It was too delicate, almost. As if sharing it with anyone besides the three siblings would somehow diminish its power.
* * *
They worked in silence for a while, perfectly at ease with each other, in tune.
Kayla refused to let her mind wander any farther than the next task at hand. Load crates. Secure them so they didn’t float about in the zero-g environment. Guide the cart to the lift. Ride up. Ride back. Repeat.
As the armory cache dwindled and their task neared completion, though, the larger world crashed down on her. Her mind began churning over problems, worrying about all possible outcomes, following every line of enquiry and result. Her fervor of nationalism from Natali’s rousing speech had a chance to cool, and the implications sank in hard. They loaded the last of the weapons into the maglift, weapons destined for rebel hands, and a future very different from the one she’d hoped for her people arose.
War.
Not just war, vengeance. Retribution.
Her people deserved it, her family deserved it. But the people of the galaxy, the TNV sufferers, demanded more than that of her.
She said as much to Malkor when they were finally back in his cabin sometime around “dawn” ship time.
“We both know that,” he said. “If your people won’t work in earnest to create a cure for the TNV, the entire empire will be eaten alive.”
Tired as she was, she cocked a grin at him. “Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?”
“Only in my wording. It’s still true.”
Her levity passed. It was true. And while those responsible for the coup on Ordoch deserved to be punished, whole planets of people didn’t deserve to die for it.
Malkor sat on his narrow bunk, she in the lone chair in the cabin, its metal feet bolted to the floor. The thing was eerily new for being five hundred years old—and just as uncomfortable as it had been upon creation.
“We don’t stand a chance of regaining our freedom if we don’t have a large enough military threat to force the imperials to the bargaining table,” she said. “Especially once Vega arrives with her fleet of battleships.”
“I don’t disagree, but if Natali whips your people up into an all-or-nothing frenzy, they might refuse to bargain at all.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You’re not the one in charge,” he said gently.
And that was fine with her… assuming all went according to plan.
“Tia’tan claims Ilmena will stand by whatever decision the Ordochians make, whether it be to help the imperials—sorry, your people—or not.” It hadn’t taken her long, once back with her family and fellow Wyrds, to fall back on using “the imperials” as a slur. “And after speaking with her, I gather Tia’tan’s a little more influential on Ilmena than she let on.”
“They feel no humanitarian urge to help us?”
“Malkor, the Ilmenans like you even less than my people do, if that’s possible.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “They did send one of their most decorated military officers to win the Empress Game and undermine your government from the inside, after all.”
“She’s military?”
“Ilmena has not been a peaceful place in a long time. And if Natali decided not only to reclaim Ordoch, but to start a war in Imperial Space, Ilmena would be right there with her.”
“If,” Malkor said, “they could ever finish rebuilding their intergalactic warships.”
Kayla nodded ruefully. “We could really use those, with Vega coming.”
“Speaking of fixing ancient battleships, Natali came to see me earlier.” He watched her for a reaction, and considering how well he knew her, he probably expected some cursing.
She restricted herself to a frustrated sigh. “I had hoped she’d wait until I’d spoken to you about some of the octet traveling to Ordoch.”
“I’ve only known your sister a little while, but that doesn’t seem like her style.”
Never was.
“Wetham’s request seems logical to me,” Malkor said.
“I just don’t think it’s safe—”
His chuckle interrupted her. “When have I ever been ‘safe?’”
“Okay, fair point.”
“This is what we do, Kayla, these kinds of missions. Honestly, we’re probably better suited to breaking your scientists out of lockdown than any of the rebels. And not just because we look like the other imperials.”
He was right, of course, but she didn’t have to like it. “Who will you send?”
“Myself. And I’ll ask Rigger, I think she’d be the most help, with her tech skills.”
She shot to her feet. “You? Absolutely not.”
He surged to his feet in response, his heavily muscled form eating up much of the available space in the room. She’d forgotten how he could loom o
ver her, the way she’d thought him intimidating when they’d first met on Altair Tri.
“You wouldn’t allow me to cast doubt on your ability to handle yourself in a tricky situation—not even for a second— so don’t you dare do it to me.”
They stared each other down, each breathing hard.
Finally, she said, “Damn you for being right,” and he grinned.
She reached out and touched his face, heaviness inside. Was this what it felt like to love romantically, this fear? She thought that constant worry for another’s safety was only present in the ro’haar–il’haar bond.
He laid his hand over hers. “I’ll be fine.”
“You’ve never fought psionics before.”
He blinked, clearly surprised by her words. “We’re infiltrating an imperial base—why would I start now?”
She stroked his cheek again. You might not have a choice, my love.
* * *
Late next afternoon, the rebel soldiers Wetham had promised arrived on the Yari.
Ida and Benny were on hand to greet them, as was the entire Reinumon family, including Corinth. The octet had been coolly disinvited by Natali.
For once Vayne would have preferred to be with the IDC agents. At least they didn’t expect anything from him. The rebels, on the other hand, stared at him as if some kind of heroic sentiment might fall from his lips at any moment. Like he was guaranteed to lead them to victory. Vayne wanted to kick them all in the head for being so stupidly hopeful.
Instead, Natali ordered him to take point on getting the rebel soldiers settled, just before she secreted herself away with the head of the Ordochian contingent. He would have argued, but Corinth, near to bursting with the excitement of being around people from a homeland he barely remembered, announced to one and all that he would accompany Ida and Benny while they gave the rebels a tour. Kayla agreed, since Vayne would be there to keep an eye on him, and that sealed his fate.
Babysitting.
While being stared at.
While everyone else got back to serious business.
The next phase of their plan to secure the ship from the stepa was starving them out by retrieving any still viable calorie packs and dry goods available on the unpowered levels. Ida and her crew had done a good job of that on the powered levels, but that was before anyone knew just how mobile the stepa really were.
Vayne grumped along silently with the rebel tour group as they followed Ida through the rough molychromium corridors. No doubt his air of dissatisfaction could be sensed even by nontelepaths. At least it kept people from chatting him up.
On the plus side, the arrival of a new crop of Ordochians to marvel at her ship had Ida back to her old jolly self. He hadn’t seen that happy slap-clap of her hands whoooooshing past each other, since before the imperials arrived. Before Gintoc had been killed. Her braid swung crazily in her energetic wake. Ida spoke as much with her hands as with her voice, proudly extolling the wonders of her five-hundred-year-old ship. Vayne would have laughed at the wide-eyed stares of the rebels, only he’d been just as wide-eyed not too long ago. He’d reached out and touched the raw molychromium wall just as reverently, boggled at Ida, Benny, and the rest of the crew in wonderment as he tried to follow their archaic speech patterns.
They were living legends.
And he’d do well to remember that.
Had he become so accustomed to living free, to being in control of his own future, that he’d forgotten what a miracle having any future at all was? Three months ago he wasn’t in control of his own mind, let alone his body. Six months ago he’d barked like a dog in front of Dolan’s benefactors—thanks to the Influencer—and had been grateful, grateful, to lick each of their boots.
Without the Influencer controlling him he knew now how sick that was, but nonetheless, gratitude was the emotion stamped across that particular memory.
He felt instantly nauseated. Blindly he reached out, desperate for any concrete proof that he was here, now, and truly free. The rebel whose arm he latched on to turned her wide eyes to him, halting in her tracks. The flow of Ordochians on the tour broke around them as they clogged up the corridor.
Great, now everyone was looking at him strangely. Again.
The rebel smiled tentatively, and Vayne read pity in her gaze. Natali’s words yesterday, her admission of their former POW status and the things that went along with it, rang in his head, shaming him once again. He released the woman like she was a poisonous snake and reared back.
Easy, he tried to tell himself, easy. Act normal. You’re weird enough to them as it is, having practically returned from the dead after five years.
Her smile faltered. A question formed on her lips, he could hear it coming from kilometers away, but Corinth saved him. Corinth, who had been skipping along behind Ida, so delighted to be included in such an exciting rebel moment, had fallen back to check on him.
::Excuse us,:: he heard Corinth voice to the rebel, ::I want to show my brother something.::
And just like that, Corinth had seized his hand and spurred him back to motion.
Who, exactly, was watching over whom?
::Are you all right?:: Corinth asked a second later.
How galling, to need rescuing from one’s own demons by a child.
::I am hardly a child:: Corinth replied, giving him a frown. ::And Kay would lecture you on laying your inner emotions so bare in mind-speak.::
Even with the rebuke, Corinth didn’t drop his hand. And Vayne, who loathed being touched by anyone without his express consent, clung to the connection.
::You’re right, of course:: he said finally. ::Kayla does love to lecture.::
Even without a sound from the boy, Vayne felt Corinth snicker.
Their connection quickly sobered, though, Corinth’s thoughts and emotions cycling as rapidly as any teenage boy’s. ::I saw you freeze up, is everything okay?::
How could everything be okay? How could anything, ever again, be okay? The Vayne that knew what “okay” meant had died a long time ago.
::I’m fine. Don’t worry over me.:: They rejoined the tour just in time to hear Ida talk about the brilliantly—if chaotically— painted panels Ariel had used to line the corridor outside the officers’ mess.
::I still can’t believe Ariel painted all of these:: Corinth said. ::She’s so—::
::Grumpy?::
::Exactly! And how did she have the time? Didn’t the captain say that she and the others only came out of cryostasis recently? When the current Tear opened and contact with Ordoch was established?::
::That is a good point.:: A damned good point, one he hadn’t considered before.
Corinth, either assured that he was fine, or teenage enough to be self-conscious about holding his big brother’s hand, released his grasp.
::Fifteen Ordochians, straight from the planet:: Corinth continued. ::Rebel fighters, even, can you believe it? Well, of course you can, you got to go there yourself yesterday.::
Trinan and Vid might have some competition for Corinth’s hero worship. In the old days, before the coup and the torture, Vayne would have reached out and ruffled Corinth’s shaggy hair. Now he couldn’t bring himself to summon that small familiarity. Corinth had usurped Vayne’s place as Kayla’s il’haar. And though the situation hadn’t been voluntary on any of their parts, it was still the present reality.
Kayla said she considered both of them her il’haars, but a ro’haar had only one true il’haar. He hadn’t survived the last five years to be replaced by a helpless boy.
Frutt.
Even in his broken state, that thought was beneath him.
He glanced at Corinth, but the boy skipped happily along once again, oblivious, his dazzled eyes on the rebels. At least Kayla’s anticipated lecture on the necessity of control over one’s emotions when speaking psionically had been effective— Corinth hadn’t sensed a hint of his unworthy feelings.
Tia’tan’s voice broke into his thoughts. ::We’ve got a situation.:: The cont
rolled intensity of her tone sent him to high alert.
::A situation like the stepa stole more of our guns?::
::Okay, not quite that bad. Can you get down here?::
::Where’s here?:: And how was he going to ditch babysitting duty? Corinth was probably safer here than anywhere else, on the move with the ship’s captain and second in command, surrounded by a dozen armed psionics, but somehow he doubted Kayla would see it that way.
He pictured the ship layout. ::Do I need to suit up for this?:: ::According to the Yari’s logs, yes, but…::
The hairs on the back of his neck rose up. ::But what?::
::But the people locked in these cells are doing just fine without suits.::
11
Vayne made an excuse to the group about needing the facilities, made Corinth promise to stay with the others, and beat it out of there.
Kayla’s going to kill me. Ah well, he’d deal with that later. He certainly wasn’t going to bring Corinth with him, and he couldn’t pull Corinth from the tour and escort him to the engine room without a host of questions being asked.
Even if Tia’tan hadn’t asked him to keep his activity a secret, he would have done so anyway. Prisoners kept on levels marked as off-limits due to a lack of life support was something to keep quiet about, at least until he knew what the frutt was going on.
The lift doors refused to open when he arrived, just as Tia’tan mentioned. The warning message was the same as those on the other blackout levels, mentioning a lack of breathable atmosphere, but when he entered his new passcode to override the warning and open the doors anyway, nothing happened. He did the same thing she had done, and rode the lift to the powered level above that one and climbed down a maintenance shaft.
::Which asshole forgot to weld this access door shut?:: he asked Tia’tan as he made his way down. ::So much for ‘level secured.’:: He’d check the ship’s datalog later and see who had reported finishing this level.
::No idea. Just hurry up.::
Vayne led with his plasma bullpup as he crawled out of the shaft and into the corridor where Tia’tan waited. It was dark except for the beam from his bullpup’s light and the shoulder lamp on her EMU.