Dru stood. “The idea is noble, but I don’t know if I can be a part of it. You were always the fighter, Trey.”
Trey circled around the desk to his brother. “This is the chance for you to fight with me. I know you have the strength in you. Think about it.”
*
As Dru headed toward his quarters, his mind swirled with mixed thoughts.
He found he wanted to talk to Daith. How much his friendship had grown with her surprised him. She calmed him. And he couldn’t deny the pull of energy between them.
He realized he wanted to stay more for her than for his brother, and not all because of their work. Dru felt linked to Daith. There was a mental and emotional bond. He wanted to continue the connection. Even though he felt more for her than he should, he couldn’t help being drawn to her, wanting to open up to her, too.
But if Daith was keeping things from him, could he depend on her?
Or, since he was lying, could she depend on him?
No. How can she? And how can I, as her doctor, and her friend, keep doing this to her?
Once in his quarters, Dru asked the ship’s computer to locate Daith. Whatever the consequences with his brother, he would tell her the truth about everything. Her past. Her present. And what might happen in her future. She deserved that much.
The computer told him she was in simulation room 4. He sent a message to her quarters.
“Daith, it’s Dru. I know my brother has asked you to stay aboard and help him with his mission. He asked me to do the same.” He paused. “I don’t know what you will decide to do—stars, I don’t know what I’d do either—but if you want someone to talk to, I want you to know you can come to me. I know things have been strained between us because of all the secrecy, but I wanted to let you know the secrecy is over. I’ll tell you everything. You’ve become important to me. Whatever you decide about Trey’s proposal, if you want to continue working on your abilities, whether you stay or not, I’d like to be a part of it. Goodnight, Daith. I will see you in the morning.”
He felt lighter, freer, more content now he’d made his decision.
For the first time in a long time, Dru fell asleep without thinking about anything at all.
*
Daith headed to her quarters after she’d left the simulation room. Between hurting her classmate and her emotional breakdown, exhaustion enveloped her.
She didn’t want to make any decisions. She didn’t want to think.
She only wanted to sleep.
Daith had just curled up under the covers when her communications panel beeped, letting her know she had a message.
“No,” she whined. “I don’t care what the stupid message is. I want to go to sleep.”
To her annoyance, the panel beeped again.
“Computer, please quiet the panel,” she begged, burying her head under the blanket.
“Message indicator is now on silent mode,” the computer responded.
“Oh, thank the stars.”
“Unable to comply. Please restate the query.”
Daith forcefully pushed the covers off her face. “I’m not talking to you!” she snapped. She heard a crack and then the smell of smoke drifted through the room. The communications panel sparked and smoldered. The message indicator beeped repeatedly while the friendly female computer voice told her there was a fire in her unit and she had sixty standard seconds before automatic emergency procedures initiated.
Groaning at the pain in her head, she cursed for having lost control of her abilities again. Daith told the computer the fire had been extinguished and she waved away the smoke.
Even though broken, the message indicator continued to beep, and the computer couldn’t turn it off. Daith pressed the button to let the message play. The voice, Dru’s, came through garbled due to the smoldering equipment.
“Daith, it’s Dru. I know my brother has asked you to stay aboard and help him with his mission. He asked me to do the same.” A crackle. “I don’t know what you will decide to do”—garbled words— “but if you want someone to talk to, I want you to know you can come to me. I know things have been strained between us because of all the secrecy, but I wanted to let you know—” This part was extremely distorted and Daith couldn’t understand anything until “—you’ve become important to me. Whatever you decide about Trey’s proposal, if you want to continue working on your abilities, whether you stay or not, I’d like to be a part of it. Goodnight, Daith. I will see you in the morning.”
Daith lay back down. She thought about Dru’s message and felt a smile blossom. He was important to her, too. She remembered the night they went out to dinner and he’d told her embarrassing stories to make her laugh. She thought about how patient he’d been during their sessions and how hard some of those tests were for him to do. He encompassed the only friend she could remember.
Whatever she did decide to do, she knew she wanted Dru with her.
Chapter 36
Dru watched Daith enter the simulation room, her eyes tired, her posture slumped. Pinpricks of sweat popped across his brow.
“Good morning.”
“If you say so.” Daith cracked her neck. “I can barely stay awake.”
“Do you want to come back later? I have a pretty heavy set of tests lined up and I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”
Daith yawned. “No, I’m fine. Just tired. Yesterday was—long.”
“I bet.” Dru wondered if she’d listened to his message. He ran his fingers through his hair, slyly wiping the sweat from his hairline. “I heard what happened in your combat training class last night.”
Daith scrunched up her face. “News spreads quickly, doesn’t it?”
Dru grinned. “It’s a small crew. So it’s true you broke Sequiria’s nose without actually hitting her?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t really mean to. It somehow, sort of—happened. I was upset and then crack!”
“From what I’ve heard about her, she probably deserved it.”
Daith raised an eyebrow.
“Her name has come up in conversation—and never under pleasant circumstances. What worries me is your abilities weren’t under your control. And someone got hurt.”
Daith rubbed her forehead. “I really don’t need a lecture.”
“I’m not trying to lecture you. I’m concerned. Your abilities are powerful—capable of extraordinary harm. If you can’t learn to control them, they will control you. You have to remain focused all the time.”
“And that was not a lecture—how?”
Dru spread his hands in front of him. “Sorry. I’m worried.”
“I know you are,” Daith said with a sigh. “I am, too. Plus I blew out my communications panel last night. It wouldn’t stop beeping and then—poof! Smoke and sparks everywhere.”
Had she not heard his message? A stray thought pushed the notion from his mind. “Wait, you broke your communications panel?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It means you caused damage to something inanimate. You weren’t able to manipulate inanimate things before, remember? With the rope and the metal bar....”
“What’s interesting about that?”
“Let’s do today’s tests first. It might give me a better understanding about what happened.”
Daith replied with a shrug.
“The first test will be opposite from the test you did to reconstruct inanimate objects. This time you’ll attempt to deconstruct them.” Dru gestured to the objects lying on the floor—pieces of glass, large rocks, and furniture.
*
With something to focus on, Daith became more alert and awake. She became swept up in the tests and after two standard hours, the room looked like a disaster zone. Shattered pieces of rock and wood littered the floor.
Except the piece of glass.
She’d spent over an hour working on it, but she couldn’t find anything to hold on to. With the rock, she’d traced its cracks with her mind, wedged a build-up of energy in between them, and released
the energy, causing a satisfying burst of fragments. Daith let her angry emotions loose on the pieces of furniture as she split apart the wooden fibers, with great cracking and snapping noises.
But the glass…wouldn’t…break.
She tried everything she could think of—twisting, turning, bending, shaking, energy blows—but nothing worked. There weren’t any cracks for her to get into or any fibers to grasp.
Exasperated, she blew a sweaty piece of hair from her forehead. “I give up. I can’t do it!”
“Maybe you’re thinking about this the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?” Daith asked.
“Think about it. Glass is a liquid, right? It’s not going to have properties like wood or stone. There won’t be any splinters or cracks. So how would you destroy a liquid?
“I would…” Daith grinned and turned her attention back to the glass. Focusing once more, she channeled her energy into heat and pushed the buildup against the pane. To her delight, a bubble formed inside, puffing outwards. With a burst, liquid glass ran down its side. The fluid boiled, changing into steam.
Daith let out a yelp of delight and threw her arms around Dru in a hug. He laughed and swept her up off her feet, his arms tightening briefly before he let her go. “Very clever.”
Daith smiled, her cheeks flushed from their embrace. She swallowed down the rush of excitement she’d felt in his touch. “Thanks.”
“Okay. Now for the hard part.” Dru’s eyes twinkled. He handed her a small metal box.
“What’s this?” Daith asked.
“This is a bomb.”
“What do you mean ‘a bomb’?”
“It’s an explosive device and it’s set to detonate in ten standard minutes.”
Daith scoffed. “Very funny.”
“Who’s laughing?”
“What do you expect me to do with it?”
“I expect you to disarm it,” he said, nonchalantly.
“What do I know about disarming a bomb?”
“Nothing, I presume.”
Daith scrunched her eyebrows. “Well then, what am I supposed to do?”
“Go inside with your mind, determine its inner structure, and take apart the necessary components without a detonation.”
“What happens if can’t?”
“It will explode.”
“What?” Daith exclaimed, trying to hand the box back. “I thought this was a simulation.”
“You know you can’t work with simulations because they aren’t real. I picked this up from the armory department, with special permission of course, and unless you want to explain to Trey and his crew why you blew a hole in their simulation room, I suggest you get to work.”
Daith’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “You’re serious.”
“Yes. And you have seven and a half minutes left.”
“You’re insane. I can’t do this!”
“You can.” Dru placed his hand on her arm and squeezed. A warmth spread from his fingertips having nothing to do with her own energy heat. “I’ll be outside monitoring your progress.”
“If you have so much faith in me, why do you need to leave?”
“Don’t want you to be distracted,” he called over his shoulder.
Daith stared at the box. Panic threatened to engulf her. Her pulse quickened. A strange feeling swept over her. The edges of her sight went hazy and gray. Her vision narrowed. The box appeared to come closer at an alarming rate. She knew at some point she would crash into it, but it kept growing in size. Heat rose in her body as she moved past the outside layer and into the box.
The inside of the circular device consisted of one moving part connected to three wires, each a trigger designed to perform a different task: one started the countdown, one stopped the countdown, and one was a trick wire which, if cut, would speed up the counter.
But which was which?
Daith traced the power flow inside each wire to determine its purpose. She found the one to stop the timer and focused the heat inside her to burn through the wire. The wire smoldered and broke in half. The timer stopped at seven minutes and two seconds.
Relief flowed through her. The box began to shrink. Her vision cleared and she opened and closed her eyes several times, blinking away the haziness.
“Um—Dru?” she called out.
The door opened and Dru stuck his head in. “You’re wasting time, you know.”
“I did it.”
“What do you mean? I just left.” Dru took the box from her, examining it.
“I know, but I stopped it.”
Dru gawked.
“I’m serious. See for yourself. The timer has stopped.”
Dru carefully unscrewed the top. The counter remained frozen and one of the wires had been severed. “This is incredible,” he mused. “How did you do this?”
Daith explained about the haziness, how she felt mentally pulled into the box, burned through the wire, and came back.
“Amazing, Daith,” he said. “It took you very little time to solve the problem. I’ve never seen such an instantaneous reaction in all my studies be—Oh, no!”
Dru bolted across the room to the communications panel. He frantically pressed a button and the computer chimed on. “Medical emergency to simulation room one!”
“Acknowledged.” The voice on the other end said.
“Dru,” Daith asked, frightened, “what’s…?” The room swam. Pain shrieked inside her head.
“Dru!” she screamed. She clamped her hands over her ears to stop the horrific noise. He ran toward her, telling her something she couldn’t hear.
And then , as abruptly, the pain ceased.
“Daith. Can you hear me?” Dru’s voice sounded far away.
Daith nodded. She pulled her hands from her ears. They were covered in blood.
“What…?” The room wavered again. Lights popped in front of her eyes.
Dru caught her before she hit the ground. “Hang on. You’re going to be okay.”
Daith remembered Dru holding her...
and then a young cadet, Dr. Ludd’s replacement...
She shook her head.
She stumbled through the corridors.
Dru’s energy flowed through her, healing her.
She tasted something bitter. She lay down.
—it felt so good to lie down—
and darkness enveloped her.
Chapter 37
Daith woke to pitch blackness.
“Computer, lights,” she murmured. The room lit up and Daith squinted in the brightness. She wasn’t in her room. “Hello?” She threw back the warm covers on the unfamiliar bed and tried to stand, but her legs buckled. She sunk, unhurt, into the deep blue carpet. Why wouldn’t her legs support her?
“Hello?” she called out again, louder. She had a momentary flashback to her first day on board and panicked that once again she wouldn’t be answered. Before she could call out a third time, the door opened to reveal Dru—hair disheveled, eyes bleary, shirt and pants wrinkled.
“Are you okay?” Dru crossed the room, rubbing the sleep from his face.
“Yeah. I fell off the bed. My legs are tingling.”
Dru helped her up. “It’s probably a side-effect from the sedative. No different than if they’d fallen asleep.”
“Sedative? Why was I given a sedative? And where am I?”
“You’re in my quarters.”
“What happened?” she asked as she rubbed her legs.
“After you fixed the bomb in the simulation room, blood started to trickle from your ear. I called for medical help. When I came back, you were screaming and holding your head. And then you stopped. I feared…” Dru trailed off, the corners of his gray eyes wrinkled with concern. “I brought you here. The doctor gave you a clotting agent and a sedative, but she didn’t know what else to do for you. Doctor Ludd’s notes on how to treat you are missing.”
“What do you think happened to me?”
“I’m not really sure.”<
br />
“I’ve never felt anything that loud before. How long was I out?”
“About sixteen standard hours. Although you could use more.”
“Sixteen…” Daith stared at the time-reader in disbelief. “What about you? What have you been doing?”
Dru’s face contorted with shame. “Mostly going over your charts—trying to understand what happened. And I don’t.”
Daith put her hand on his arm. “There’s no way you could have known.”
Dru shrugged off the sympathy. “It’s my job to know. Or at least to have an idea. But what I’m dealing with here…” Dru looked at her, his gaze hard. “This is out of my league. I promised you wouldn’t be harmed. Our sessions have been exciting and wonderful, but all I’ve done is hurt you. Your pain gets worse every test.” Dru’s eyes clouded with sorrow.
Daith wanted to reassure him—she had consented to this, too. She put her hand on his arm again and this time he didn’t shake off her touch. She let her energy flow into him freely and she watched his eyes close with a sigh.
“Have you gotten any sleep?” she asked, stifling a yawn.
“A couple of standard hours, I guess.”
Daith nodded at the floor. “The carpet’s pretty comfortable. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
A weak smile spread across Dru’s face. The grin fell away. “I could’ve killed you.”
Daith turned his face toward hers. “But you didn’t. You were there to help me. If I’d been learning on my own, I may not have made it.”
Dru nodded, less angry. “I’m—I’m sorry, Daith.”
She brushed a few stray strands of hair from his forehead, smoothing his worried brow. “Like you said before, we are in this together.”
Dru lay down on the floor. Daith slithered under the sheet on the bed after handing Dru the extra pillow and told the computer to dim the lights seventy-five percent.
“Daith?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you made a decision about what Trey asked? We reach Sintaur’s system tomorrow.”
Daith thought for a moment. “All I’ve wanted was to know who I am. I thought going home might give me the answers I needed. But because of my abilities, I’ll be hunted for the rest of my life. Even if I go back home, or whatever pile of ashes used to be my home, how could I be sure I’d be safe?
Eomix Galaxy Books: Illusion Page 22