I blushed. The truth of that promise was in the hungry desire in his eyes. “I-I’d like our first time to be special.”
He smiled at me before taking my lips in an achingly sweet kiss.
The tenderness of it swept through me, pushing out my insecurities and worries. My big, tough bounty hunter wanted me, and he understood me. It would feel wrong to make love to Vulf with my grandfather imprisoned on the Orion. That didn’t meant that I didn’t still crave Vulf’s closeness. I smiled as he ended the kiss.
“Eat your breakfast,” he said bossily.
I saluted him with the spoon, dripping milk everywhere.
Chapter 11
I sat on a chair that Ahab unfolded from the floor of the cargo hold. It swiveled on its single pole leg as I moved. I’d been staring at Ivan for almost an hour, not really seeing him anymore, but lost in my head.
As Vulf entered through the hatch from below, wearing his exercise gear and glistening with sweat from a hard work-out, his assessing gaze was for me rather than Ivan.
“I want to know why he did it. Why is the Meitj Imperial Crown so important to him?”
Vulf crouched, lowering himself to my height. We both studied Ivan, all cleaned up courtesy of the medbot’s attentions and sleeping with a drugged unconsciousness that nonetheless seemed to be healing him. He’d been on the run and ragged from his obsession with stealing the Imperial Crown. This enforced rest was probably helping him.
He’d be ready to stand trial on Naidoc in two days.
I’d rested, too, as Vulf had insisted. I’d also guided the Orion through two wormholes, my shamanic talent working as usual. That reassured both Vulf and me.
He’d shifted a couple of times, becoming comfortable in his robot wolf form. I knew he wanted to run in it, but for that we needed to be planetside—and we needed to decide if we were keeping his shifting a secret.
“If we had a disrupter, we could risk waking Ivan,” Vulf said. “But without one…you’ll have to wait till we’re on Naidoc to ask him.”
“Because he has such a good track record on answering my questions,” I said with a touch of bitterness, thinking of how Ivan had hidden my mother’s name and history from me.
Vulf squeezed my shoulder before standing. “I need a shower. How about a game of poker afterward?” He was teaching me the game, avowedly with the intention of instituting strip poker rules, once Ivan was off the Orion.
“Winner has to give the other a back rub,” I said.
He growled. “There are only so many cold showers and gym sessions I can survive.”
I grinned up at him, putting everything into responding to his attempt to distract me. “So, is that a no to the massage?”
“Hell, no!”
We reached Naidoc two days later. We’d stretched out the final leg of the journey so that we arrived at the start of business hours. The Meitj Guard were waiting for us, not so much expediting our planet entry registration procedure, as ignoring it.
Captain Lefall came aboard, accompanied by two lieutenants, both of whom held disrupters.
I’d expected nothing less, and accepted the temporary stifling of my shamanic talent. Perhaps I could destroy the disrupters as I’d destroyed Vulf’s, but that defeated the point. We needed the disrupters in operation so that we could safely wake Ivan.
The cargo hold seemed full with the three Meitj and Vulf, plus the medbot, all intent on Ivan. I stayed on the bridge, observing through screens. Ahab watched with me. Well, obviously he was throughout the starship, but it felt as if the AI was with me. I was glad for even a virtual presence. I didn’t want to be alone as I watched Ivan wake from sedation. I saw the tiny flinch at the corner of his eyes and the way his fingers flexed. He’d automatically reached for sha energy, and the operation of the disrupters had burned him.
“Ivan Mishkin,” Captain Lefall recited the long list of charges against Ivan. The three Meitj were as tall as Vulf, though narrower. Their exoskeletons were inscribed with the patterns and hues of their profession, blue for guard duties with interlocking circles. “Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Ivan said gruffly. “I need a drink.” He didn’t look at any of them, but at the medbot.
Controlled by Ahab, the medbot remained unresponsive. While Ivan had woken from sedation, Vulf had completed the formal handover of the prisoner—I swallowed hard to think of Ivan that way—and Ivan and his care were the Meitj Guard’s responsibility. It was Captain Lefall’s right to agree to or refuse Ivan’s request.
“Nutrition will be provided following our own medical assessment,” Captain Lefall said. “Please, stand.”
Ivan used two hands to push himself up from the bunk. Courtesy of the medbot, he once more wore the clothes he’d arrived in; although, the khaki utility suit was now clean.
The two disrupter-wielding lieutenants watched him carefully. Their multi-faceted eyes shimmered with metallic rainbow colors.
Captain Lefall spared a glance for Vulf. “You are required at the prisoner’s trial, Mr. Trent. It begins in one hour.”
“We’ll be along.”
Did Ivan’s shoulders stiffen fractionally at the implication that I’d also be attending his trial?
“How do they expect Ivan to be ready to stand trial in an hour?” I asked.
Ahab changed camera displays on the screens, enabling me to watch Ivan’s plodding pace out through the Orion and onto the space dock. “The Imperial Palace is only a ten minute bubble car ride from the space dock. Assuming, and I believe it is safe to assume, that the Meitj Guard reserved an elevator to descend from the dock, departing the space dock should take no longer than seven minutes. The Orion’s medbot is highly effective. Ivan’s medical assessment will find no immediate issues to treat. Data taken from scanning him can be analyzed while he is at trial.”
“In short, the Meitj’s insanely tight timeframe is do-able.” I got up from the co-pilot’s chair. “Thanks for keeping me company, Ahab.”
“I consider you a friend, Jaya.”
The unexpectedness of his comment halted me a moment. I blinked against the sting of tears. “Ahab, I’d hug you if I could. Thank you. And I consider you a friend, too.”
“How about hugging me?” Vulf suggested. He’d returned from escorting the Meitj guards and Ivan from the Orion. His arms closed strongly around me. “Are you okay?”
Ahab had probably reported my observable state to him as he walked to the bridge, but I appreciated the concern behind the question.
“Holding up,” I said.
“We should leave now for the Imperial Palace. We’ll need to flag a bubble cab, pass through security at the palace, and find the courtroom where Ivan’s trial is to be held.” Vulf didn’t usually waste words on recounting obvious information. In his own way, he was babbling; filling my silence with mundane matters.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him.
“I’ll be with you,” he said.
I smiled. “That’ll help.”
The Naidoc space dock had a completely different vibe to its counterpart on the mercantile Meitj planet of Shaidoc, which I’d visited a few times on starship shaman voyage contracts. Where Shaidoc was a controlled kind of chaos with people and goods moving fast in a blur of trade, the space dock at Naidoc gleamed. It was clean, quiet, busy but ordered, and it impressed with an atmosphere of wealth and long-established peace. The Meitj preference for straight lines and interlocking geometric designs showed in its layout, but that made it easy to navigate.
Vulf and I waited ten minutes for an elevator to arrive, entering it with about a hundred other people. It could have comfortably taken double that number. The Meitj really were a cultured species. There was no strained elevator muzak. Sound came from the quiet conversations of the mainly Meitj passengers.
As we exited to the bubble cab rank beside the boulevard that ran from the space dock to the Imperial Palace, I started shaking.
“Jaya?” Vulf instantly blocked the polite crowd fr
om me with his body.
“If Ivan had succeeded…if we hadn’t stopped him…all of this…” I shook so hard that I couldn’t finish the sentence. Naidoc, with its quiet alien charm and all of its people, would have been destroyed.
“Panic attack.” Vulf wrapped me up tight in his arms. “Breathe through it, stargirl.”
“I don’t.” I gasped. “Have panic attacks.”
Two Meitj Guards approached, middle arms folded at their abdomens, their highest jointed arms hanging by their sides. “Do you require assistance?”
Ivan and his guards, with their disrupters, were far enough away that I could draw on sha energy. I sent it flooding through me, reinforcing normal metabolic behavior. The threat of a panic attack faded.
“We have an appointment at the Imperial Palace,” Vulf said. As I relaxed, so did his hold on me.
The guards nodded. They probably had images of Vulf and I, and orders to ensure we arrived in a safe and timely fashion at Ivan’s trial. “We will provide you with transport.”
Vulf glanced at me, checking that I was okay to continue.
“Panic attack averted.” I pressed my hand briefly over the steady beat of his heart. Then we slid into the backseat of a bubble car marked with the blue of the Guards.
Our two guards parked in an official bay and led us to a side entrance. A quick exchange with the three guards standing there made it plain that we were expected. We allowed our retinas to be scanned before a lieutenant offered to guide us to the courtroom.
The Imperial Palace was composed of hexagonal rooms, the mathematics of it disconcerting as rooms ranged in size. We followed the lieutenant along corridors colored butter-yellow which made me feel jaundiced.
“The secret court.” The lieutenant halted outside a door where two guards stood sentinel.
“The Emperor is in attendance,” one guard said. The information appeared to be intended for Vulf and me.
“Is there a protocol we should observe?” I asked.
“No.” Professor Summer pushed the slightly open door fully ajar. “At least, not until the trial starts. Come in. I’ll introduce you.” Vulf nudged me ahead of him. “Raine is my nephew.”
I felt Vulf’s shock.
“You’re part of the Imperial family?”
“On the wrong side of the blanket, your old Earth traditions would describe it,” Professor Summer said cheerfully. “Raine’s grandfather, my father, was the emperor. I was the result of a casual encounter he had prior to growing into his responsibilities. The family has always acknowledged me even if I’m outside the line of succession.”
“He is wiser than any of us.” The intricate hexagonal markings on the shell of the Meitj who approached us, along with his gleaming crimson coloring, announced that this was the Emperor.
“Raine, Vulf Trent, whom I have known since his infancy. If you can imagine such a massive being as a squalling babe.”
The Emperor extended one of his middle arms, and he and Vulf shook hands.
“And Jaya Romanov,” Professor Summer continued. “Starship shaman and, unless I have lost all ability to read human body language, something far more important and personal to my friend Vulf.”
Did I tell them that I was also Ivan’s granddaughter?
The Emperor shook my hand, his claw shockingly soft. No wonder the Meitj protected their middle arms and fought with their higher jointed ones.
“Honored to meet you, Emperor,” I said.
“I wish it could be under better circumstances.” The Emperor’s breath whistled in an emotional sigh. “But come. We have many questions, although we must save them for the trial.” He led us down through the empty tiered seating to the circular stage at the center of the room.
Two Meitj waited for us there, and a human whom I recognized.
“Good morning, Chancellor Hayden,” I greeted the head of the Star Guild Shaman Academy.
Winona Hayden’s head tilted to one side, a tell that usually indicated a scolding ahead. “Jaya Romanov, what have you gotten involved in?”
The Emperor intervened, insisting on introductions. The other two Meitj were the judge and the president of the Meitj Court.
Vulf and I were in high-powered company, if you considered power as purely political.
With my sha senses, I felt the approach of a disrupter in operation, and released my contact with sha energy.
A grimace crossed Winona Hayden’s patrician face. She’s obviously felt the effects of the disrupter, too.
A different door to the one Vulf and I had entered by opened, and Ivan was escorted in. His straggly gray hair was combed and tied back in a ponytail. He was clean shaven and his khaki utility suit had been exchanged for a dull blue t-shirt and sweatpants, and his boots replaced by slip-on shoes without laces. He was obviously in what the Meitj considered prison garb for humans.
But he’d recovered his attitude and his blue eyes were shrewd as they took us all in. His gaze flickered over me as if I was a stranger.
“Emperor, shall we begin?” the judge asked.
“May we serve with honor,” Raine said. It was obviously a formal assent. The two guards, captains both, who’d escorted Ivan in, moved to stand at the paths between the empty seating that led to the doors. They also made sure that the disrupters they held were obvious.
The judge took a position opposite Ivan on the circle marked as an inner ring on the stage. The Emperor stood at the judge’s right.
I realized that the eight of us in the room—I wasn’t counting the guards—were to compose the circle. There were no chairs on the stage. For the trial, we would all stand. Unless the Meitj tired less easily than humans, the protocol was likely designed to reduce waffling.
“Please, stand here.” Professor Summer directed me to a position on Ivan’s right.
I looked sharply at the elderly Meitj, who merely nodded benignly, and manhandled Vulf to stand equal distance between me and the position the Professor took in the circle, standing at the judge’s left hand. I ended up confronting the Emperor across the circle and wished I understood more of the Meitj body language. There was meant to be meaning in the colors that glittered in their multi-faceted eyes.
Winona Hayden stood at Ivan’s left and studied him disapprovingly.
“Ivan Mishkin,” the judge began. “You are charged with many offences, but this secret court is concerned with only two issues: your attempt to steal the Imperial Crown; and the terrorist threat to destroy the Meitj solar system if your ransom demand for the Imperial Crown was not met. Do you dispute either matter?”
“No.”
The judge tapped his middle claws together. “We seek to learn why you desire the Imperial Crown. Why is it worth millions of deaths to you?”
From the other side of Ivan, I heard Winona’s sharp breath.
I’d been braced for the stark statement of Ivan’s evil. My pulse rate increased, but I wasn’t subsumed by a panic attack.
“You know why.” Ivan glared back at the judge.
What? I pressed my lips together to keep from voicing the question. Why was Ivan challenging the judge as if the judge was at fault?
“The court would hear your reasons, if there is room for mercy.”
“I ask no mercy from the likes of you,” Ivan spat. He literally spat, the spittle flying into the circle.
Winona made a sound of disgust.
The Meitj showed no reaction.
“You would let your granddaughter believe you a man capable of killing a civilization for a whim?” Professor Summer asked in a soft voice.
Vulf and I snapped our attention to him.
“Apologies,” the professor inclined his head to us in a shallow bow. “There was time to investigate your activities in pursuit of Ivan while you journeyed here. The bounty hunter, Mike Seymour, provided information. He had, reprehensibly, bugged a bar known as the Spotted Toadstool on Samanth. He sold us a recording of your conversation with its owner.”
“Daisy sold me
out?” Ivan rasped.
The Emperor, of all people, intervened to answer. “If you consider the woman’s honest welcome of your granddaughter as a personal betrayal of you, then yes, the woman sold you out.”
“This man is your grandfather?” Winona stared at me. “For how long have you known?”
“Since I was nine.” I was pleased at how steady my voice sounded.
Winona scowled. “And you kept that information from us?”
“Family loyalty trumps institutional loyalty every time,” Vulf said, with a shifter’s approval.
The silent Meitj president nodded.
Winona snorted. “So am I now to learn that you assisted this man in—”
“No!” I cried.
Vulf growled. “No.” A threat rumbled in his voice.
“You’re an idiot, Winona,” Ivan said. “The silly girl stopped me.” For the first time since entering the courtroom, he truly looked at me. “Only one that could have, I’d bet.” Something like pride showed in his eyes.
“We would be interested to learn how,” the judge regained control of the session. “But it is Ivan Mishkin who is on trial. We can request Ms. Romanov’s report later. Our investigators have confirmed her innocence, and indeed, the great debt we owe her.” Once more, the judge clapped his middle claws together. Either it was a personal idiosyncrasy, or the soft clap had a meaning in Meitj culture, one that suggested the ending of one topic and the beginning of another. “Ivan Mishkin, do you have the courage to allow your beliefs to stand on record?”
At the direct challenge to his character Ivan shrugged. Then he glanced sideways at me. “I had a reason.”
“To kill millions of people?” I shook my head. “There is no excuse. Never.”
“What if these millions of people were holding captive another entire sentient species?” Ivan asked.
The courtroom was utterly silent.
“The Meitj have an impeccable reputation for honor,” Winona said.
Ivan looked around at the Meitj. “And yet, they do not defend themselves. They know!” The last word emerged as a shout. Old, Ivan might be, and stripped of his shamanic talent by the disrupters, but the passion in him compelled attention. “I have spent my life exploring the ignored sectors of space. I have mapped my own starlanes. The information I’ve provided has enabled renegade groups to evade authorities for decades. Your people have benefited.” He looked at Vulf.
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