by Unknown
“The head has to come off and the body—especially the parasite—must be flash fried,” Leveche stressed. He reached into his pants pocket and took out a phospho gun and laid it on the table. “This is an X-54 Magnum DC and it has the most takedown power of any weapon available from Fleet Command. Its range is fifteen feet with a pulse discharge of eight hundred amps to get your opponent’s attention. A sustained direct discharge of two thousand amps to break the initial resistance of the skin and cause instantaneous unconsciousness takes roughly five seconds. If you are dealing with a human, that is lethal but with a Reaper, it will only put her down long enough for you to take the killing blow.”
“With this,” Bakari said, and slid an obsidian dagger beside the phospho gun.
“After you’ve taken her head, hike the amps up on the gun to the SDD range again and incinerate the body. That’ll take about ten to twenty seconds. Watch for the parasite. It will try to scramble away and hide,” Leveche warned.
The vid-com chimed and Bakari answered. “Aye?”
“Breva just informed us the LRC on Riezell-Nine is powering up. Looks like they’re getting ready to skip,” Quinn reported. He grinned. “Queen Polemusa wanted me to inform you that you’d best get back up to the bridge. We may need to activate the Maze as soon as we’re in range so I can shut down that ship.”
“Damn,” Bakari barked. “All right. We’re on our way.”
“And FYI,” Quinn said, “that LRC has been programmed for an Éilvéiseach.”
“They’re going after the money in Ailyn’s inheritance account,” Shanee said, her eyes blazing.
No one on the bridge said it but the implication was on each of their minds. If his mother and brother were headed for an Éilvéiseach, they had somehow extracted both a signature and the password from Ailyn. It did not bear thinking on for too long how that had been accomplished.
* * * * *
He knew he was alone. His Reaper senses told him as much. He had come out of Transition in a remarkably short span of time and that concerned him but not enough to worry about right then. His mother and the others were on the ship and they were leaving him behind and he had to find the Sustenance and tenerse Cean had told him would be there.
Weakly he rolled over and managed to pull himself up by leaning heavily against the slick titanium walls. He was naked and defenseless, without the energy to form clothing on his trembling body. It was hard to walk for his vision was wavering, the floor undulating beneath him like rolling waves. The motion made him sick to his stomach and increased the headache that threatened to make his temples explode. He didn’t think the visual disturbance was a residual effect of the ghoret toxin but he didn’t know for sure.
With his shoulder sliding along the wall, he went out into the corridor and tried to regulate his bearings to what he remembered of R-9 when he and the others had been set free. He had wandered about the facility, unable to believe the size of it since his world had been relegated to his small cell for all those years. He was so thirsty his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth and trembling so violently from withdrawal it was hard to think.
Propped against a doorway, he tried to locate in his mind where the main lab was in relation to where he was standing. He wasn’t sure and his mind was a jumble of acute pain and his body burning, itching from lack of the narcotic.
“Think, Ailyn,” he said aloud. “Think.”
He was fairly sure the main lab was behind him so he forced his body around, expending even more energy that was waning fast. Sluggishly putting one foot ahead of the other, he began moving in that direction. His breathing was slow and labored, his lungs feeling singed from the high heat of his body.
He stopped and listened and thought he heard the sound of a refrigeration unit kicking in. He concentrated on the humming noise and was reassured he was going in the right direction. As he passed one of the rooms he saw a jumpsuit hanging on a peg and paused. Though his body was fevered, he was so cold his teeth were clicking together. The jumpsuit would help to warm him so he dredged up enough strength to detour into the room and drag the garment from the peg. It took him a long time to get it on and it was a bit too tight for him but it helped to block out the cold.
The lights had been left on in what he thought must be the lab and the brightness spilling out into the corridor from its open door began to hurt his sensitive eyes the closer he got to it. He was squinting against the glare but when he reached the room, he was relieved to see it was indeed the lab and sitting on the far wall was the massive refrigeration unit that was his goal.
Stumbling now for he was rapidly losing what energy he had left, he bumped into the lab tables, knocking beakers and flasks to the granite floor. He stepped on shards of broken glass—cutting his bare feet—but he didn’t even notice. He was licking his dry lips, anticipating the Sustenance that waited on the other side of the thick stainless steel doors. By the time he reached them, he was giddy with need.
It took several tries before he was able to jerk open one of the doors and he whimpered when he saw the deep shelves bare. The next door revealed more empty space as did the third and the fourth. By the time he yanked the fifth of the six doors open, he was crying like a baby and so terrified he could barely stand. When the fifth door revealed neatly stacked beakers of Sustenance and boxes of vac-syringes filled with what he prayed was tenerse, he sank to his knees in thanksgiving, burying his face in his hands as he sobbed.
The Sustenance called to him and his queen scraped along his backbone to remind him She was in need too. Though She did not hurt him, She was insistent and with the last of his rapidly draining strength, he managed to grab a beaker. He slumped down in front of the open refrigeration unit and drained the Sustenance, gulping the thick black liquid—some of it dripping from his lips to stain the beige jumpsuit. He finished that beaker and drank two more before he had even a semblance of energy to reach for a vac-syringe. Plunging it into his neck—barely reacting to the terrible burning of the thick med—he waited for the pain to subside, the withdrawal to ease, but it didn’t.
“Not enough,” he said, and fumbled for another vac-syringe. Once again he administered the caustic narcotic and felt just a twinge of relief. “Give it time, Ailyn. Give it time to work,” he mumbled aloud.
As the last of his strength faded away, he slumped there with his chin to his chest, waiting for his world to be made right again.
* * * * *
“Eighteen life forms are on the ship,” Quinn reported as he stood behind the com officer, reading his screen. “Six joining the ship’s crew. Two Reaper heat signatures, one very weak.”
“That’s him, Sir,” the com officer said, pointing to a very weak blip on the screen as it split, showing the facility on R-9.
“You’d better get in there stat, Rory,” Leveche said. “Don’t worry about shutting down alarms. Just get to him and bring him back up here.” He looked at the other two Scaans. “Get over to that ship and disable their Web then get your asses back here pronto!”
“We’re on it!” Quinn said, he and his men heading for the elevator.
“Throw the Net around that ship, Raoul. Don’t let it leave,” Leveche ordered his half brother.
“Can’t,” Breva reported over the vid-com. “They’ve got a clear tube all the way up.”
“Could they know we’re here?” Polemusa asked.
“No way,” Bakari said. “Can we move a ship into position over them to block?”
“Negative,” Breva replied. “We’ve got them surrounded but no one thought to block the airspace above them. They’ve got energy pulses shooting straight up to clear a path. Sorry, Gabe. My fault.”
“Can we lock on to the hag and her little bastard?” Shanee asked. “That’s all I care about. Get them on board and let the LRC fly. Shoot her down as she attempts to power up to hyper drive.”
“Now that we can try,” Breva stated. He asked for retinal IDs of the two Harmattans from the Coalition data banks
so his engineer could lock on to mother and son and snatch them off the Ceannus ship.
“I want Cean,” Bakari said. “Can you lock on to her slimy ass?”
“I doubt it unless you have a retinal for her,” Breva replied.
“The gods-be-damn it, I don’t!” Bakari said.
“Then you’ll have to content yourself with blowing her to space dust when that ship attempts to leave R-9 airspace,” Leveche advised.
“It’s just not the same,” the ex-Burgon complained. “I wanted to use my scytheblade on that bitch.”
“Poor little guy,” Leveche said, making a tutting sound. “There will be other people you can behead with your new little sword. Don’t worry.”
“They know we’re here,” the com officer reported. “It’s chaos on their bridge.”
“Are the Scaans over there yet?”
“Aye and the Web is powering down.”
“Where is the bitch and her pup?” Polemusa asked.
“We’re locking on to them…now!” Breva answered from the vid-com.
“Transport her to the gym,” Shanee asked. “She’s mine.” She gave her mother a faint grin then turned and made for the elevator that would take her to engineering.
“What about the male?” Breva inquired.
“Send him on to the transport room. They’ll take him into custody,” Bakari replied. He frowned at Leveche. “Can’t I just whittle him up a bit?”
“If it would make you happy, Ryden,” Leveche said. “You don’t need my permission. This is your ship.”
Bakari’s face lit up. “It is, isn’t it?” He fingered the handle of the scytheblade at his waist.
* * * * *
Rory Quinn materialized in the corridor outside the main lab. He had slightly miscalculated but with all the alarms going off around him, he didn’t think he’d done too badly. Hurrying into the lab, he made straight for Ailyn Harmattan, his heart thudding hard as he saw the Reaper collapsed on the floor.
Dropping down beside him, Quinn put two fingers to the carotid artery in the other man’s neck and felt the faint pulse. He slapped his hand on the vid-com badge on his shirt. “I’ve got him but he’s barely alive.”
“Then hurry, Phantom!” Leveche ordered.
Quinn slipped his arms under Ailyn’s legs and behind his back and lifted, grunting with the effort. He started to turn away when his Scaan sixth sense kicked in and directed his attention to the bottles of Sustenance and vac-syringes in the refrigeration unit. Not one to dismiss the warning that was quivering down his spine, he knew he’d be back for samples.
“Lock and load, guys,” he said. “I’ve got him!”
As he and his burden began to dematerialize, Quinn’s gaze stayed on the opened refrigeration unit and the neatly arranged bottles of black blood.
* * * * *
Shanee knew the doors to the gymnasium were locked as she walked toward them. There would be no way for Elspeth Harmattan-Jost to leave. With the new acute hearing she now possessed, she could hear the other woman slapping her palms against the pneumatic doors, trying to make them open.
“Anything that could be used as a weapon has been evacuated from the room.” Her mother’s face suddenly appeared on the vid-com screen beside the main door into the gym.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Shanee said.
“It will be a fair fight,” her mother replied. “May the Wind be at your back.”
* * * * *
They were waiting for him as Quinn appeared on the transporter pad. A gurney had been rolled close and he hurried to lay Ailyn down. “I’ve got to go back. Something isn’t right,” the Phantom said before stepping back and disappearing again.
“Get him down to sickbay,” Bakari said. He was stunned at the strange gray pallor that covered Ailyn Harmattan’s face.
Leveche and Bakari were right behind the gurney as it was rolled into the elevator. On the way up the two decks to sickbay, they didn’t speak but there was no need. They recognized impending death when they saw it.
The healer and his assistants took over charge of the gurney as soon as the elevator doors opened, grabbing the rolling bed and rushing into the diagnostic room with it.
“What I wouldn’t give for one of those TAOS units off the Sláinte,” the healer said, speaking of the Tissue Artery Organ Skeletal diagnostic and restoration unit he’d heard about.
“Wouldn’t do any good with a Reaper,” Leveche reminded him. “Only the hellion can heal him.”
Quinn suddenly appeared next to the healer—effectively scaring the poor man. “Sorry,” the Scaan apologized then thrust a beaker of the black blood and a vac-syringe at the healer. “You might want to analyze these. Something tells me they are tainted.”
“Tainted how, Rory?” Bakari asked.
“With that gods-be-damned nephrotoxin,” Leveche snarled. “I’d stake my kingdom on it!”
“You mean what’s in here could be shutting down his kidneys?” the healer asked, handing the beaker to an assistant with a command to run it through analysis.
“Aye and if that’s true, there’s only one thing we can do about it,” Leveche said. His hand went to his tie and he started jerking it from its knot.
“Ship’s leaving, Burgon!” Polemusa said from the vid-com.
Bakari hesitated. He wanted to be there for Ailyn but he desperately wanted to make sure the Ceannus LRC was destroyed.
“Go,” Leveche said. “There’s nothing you can do to help right now.” He was stripping off his shirt.
“You’re going to give him one of your fledglings?” the healer asked.
“No,” Leveche said with a grimace. “I’m going to give him my queen.”
* * * * *
Shanee put her hand on the panel to slide the gym door open and strolled inside as though she had not a care in the world. Across the room, the woman she intended to kill was trying to find a way out. As soon as the Amazeen entered, Elspeth spun around, her face turning hard as flint.
“Well, if it isn’t my son’s whore,” she hissed.
“Well, if it isn’t my husband’s soon-to-be-dead mother,” Shanee flung back at her.
Elspeth sniffed and a slight hint of fear darted across her face as she recognized the Reaper scent. “Is he dead yet?” she asked, wanting to hurt the Amazeen.
Though those four words drove an ice-cold dagger of pain through her heart, Shanee forced herself not to react. “He’s very much alive,” she said.
The older woman laughed. “Oh I doubt that,” she said, and began moving to the side, away from the advance of the unarmed Amazeen. “Cean took all his fledglings though she left the useless queen.”
“The queen isn’t as useless as you thought she was,” Shanee said. She could feel the blood pounding in her temples.
“Cean didn’t take the queen from him because it was dying,” Elspeth declared. “Between the ghoret venom and the nephrotoxin, the hellion didn’t stand a chance of surviving.”
Shanee had to believe Leveche and Bakari would take care of her ailing husband. She could not afford to allow her opponent to put doubt—and fear—into her mind. Ailyn would be all right. His friends would save him. The important thing was to rid the megaverse of the likes of Elspeth Harmattan-Jost.
“Believe what you will, old woman,” Shanee said. “Either way, you are toast.”
Ailyn’s mother’s forehead furrowed for a moment then with teeth bared, she rushed Shanee—no doubt believing the element of surprise would be on her side.
* * * * *
“Your queen?” Bakari questioned, his mouth dropping open.
“Burgon?” Polemusa prodded. “Do you want to be on the bridge when we take Cean down or not?”
“I told you to go, Ry,” Leveche said. He had removed his shirt and was motioning for a gurney to be rolled up so he could lie down. “I have to transfer my queen to him. That is the only way to save his life. Now get your ass up there and spray Cean into space particles.”
/> “Removing your queen won’t harm you?” the healer asked.
Leveche shook his head. “I’ll be weak but the nest will choose another fledgling to be queen.” He scowled at Bakari. “Get the hell out of here, Burgon!”
Bakari hesitated only a fraction of a second longer then sprinted into the open cage of the elevator. He saluted Leveche as the Reaper hopped up on the gurney.
“What do I need to do, your grace?” the healer asked.
“You’ll need to make a twelve-inch-long cut from kidney to kidney on both of us. Take my queen first then open him and remove his. Scoop out as much of Her as you can because I imagine She’ll be disintegrating by now. Place my queen in him and then stand back. She’ll close up the wound.”
“The Sustenance is laced with nephrotoxin,” the healer’s assistant reported. “So is the tenerse.”
“I’ll go back down and destroy all of it,” Quinn said. “Do you have extra for him, Gabe?”
“Aye, there’s plenty on board,” the Reaper replied as the healer began swabbing his back with an astringent.
“Do you want me to put you out?” the healer asked.
“Not necessary,” Leveche said. “Just get on with it!”
* * * * *
Bakari sat down in his command chair just as the Ceannus LRC began its ascent. He asked if the Scaans had returned to the Raptor and was assured they had. “Open a channel to that bitch’s ship,” he ordered.
“They are blocking us,” the com officer replied.
“We’re locked on them, Burgon,” the weapons officer told him.
“Then blast their reptilian tails out of my sky!” Bakari hissed.
As soon as the harsh flare lit the vid-com screen and the percussion wave rocked the Raptor, the ex-Burgon watched until the last flicker of debris was gone. “Are you sure Cean was on board?”
“We’re sure,” Polemusa said.
“Where is the hag’s son?” he asked.
“In a holding cell,” the security chief replied.
“Is Shanee finished yet?”
“Not yet,” Polemusa answered. “If I know my daughter, she’ll prolong that bitch’s death for as long as possible and make her suffer as much as she can.”