She inclined her head, but not before he saw a spark of temper in her eyes. “I thought my particular talents might come in handy, especially if this simple trip turns out to be something more dangerous.”
“Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms and sent her a hard stare. “While I might have seen you work some mojo, I’d still like an accounting of your talents and exactly what you’re capable of.”
“A person doesn’t ever really know what they’re capable of until they are placed in a situation of extremities.” The look she gave him sliced right through his middle, reminding him that at one time, she had used her freaky mind-reading abilities and seen into the darkest depths of his soul.
A cold sweat broke out on his lower back, but he was saved from having to answer or go looking for the nearest bottle of Violaine when the rest of the crew turned up.
“We’re all here?” He walked down the ramp and a quick glance revealed that yes, every single member of his crew had decided to come along on this little jaunt. “Let’s get going then.”
Once everyone was off the ship, he closed up the hatchway and double-checked all the weapons on his belt as he led his crew toward the shuttle stop. As he’d hoped, the local shuttle had been left dark and unattended.
He stopped next to the transport and slapped a hand against the side. “Sen, let’s get this baby open.”
Sen pulled some tools from his belt and took to the control panel.
“We’re stealing their shuttle?” Zahli crossed her arms and sent him a sour look.
“Yes, we’re boosting their ride. But we’ll bring it back, park it right here, and they’ll be none the wiser. Seriously, sis. Are you really surprised by anything I do these days?”
She muttered something under her breath too low for him to hear, but whatever it was had her scumrat fiancé smiling. Lucky Rian was too intent on getting this latest Reidar mystery solved, or he might have had to dish out some violence over that. Unfortunately, he’d need the tech analyst’s skills for the next part of their venture.
Inside the transport, Tannin hacked the shuttle’s primary controls, and Lianna took over, getting them to the discovery location in no time.
As he’d predicted, the tent city was a ghost town. Using the shuttle’s infrared scanner, he confirmed there was absolutely no one hanging around. Rian led the crew off the transport and down the path to where several floodlights lit up the doorway. At least they’d have no problem seeing.
This doorway, and whatever was behind it, had to be the phantom he couldn’t see lurking in the back of his mind, telling him something important he couldn’t understand. He didn’t think he’d been here before, but he had to have at least known about it on some level to be drawn to this planet.
While the crew hung back, he approached the wall, cold sweat spreading along his spine. Though he strove to remain detached, to keep all Reidar-related recollections compartmentalized, sometimes hollow, icy sensation slithered through his defenses. He wasn’t left with a memory so much as a haunting, abyss-like sensory echo of the past.
He took a short breath as he stopped in front of the control mechanism. Old codes the Reidar had forced him to remember surfaced as though he’d used them yesterday, the knowledge on automated recall, trained like a dog to perform at the right command.
Surely, those old ciphers wouldn’t work any longer? The Reidar would have updated their systems, improved their security after he’d escaped. But he reached up and tapped out the pattern of symbols before he’d even finished the thought.
The section of door depressed inward, letting out a puff of cold air, then the whole thing slid to the left, revealing shadows beyond. Harsh white lights flicked to life, illuminating a utilitarian corridor stretching into the mountain.
“How in the fiery pits of Erebus did you do that?” Tannin asked, breaking the weighted silence behind him.
Rian glanced over his shoulder, his crew staring at him with varying expressions of surprise and awe. All except Ella, who looked too frecking serene, as usual.
“In case you haven’t worked it out by now, I know a thing or two about the Reidar. Come on, let’s get this done before we get caught. The locals don’t need to know the truth about this place.” He stepped into the passageway, clenching his fists over the low shiver of dread that unfurled through his body.
“And what if they accidentally find out after we leave?” Zahli asked as she trailed along behind him.
“I doubt the Reidar will let them. Or if they do, they’ll take care of the issue.”
“Take care how?” Zahli demanded.
By blowing them into the stratosphere. It wouldn’t be the first time the Reidar had destroyed an entire world. The past pushed harder at his mental barriers, starting up a low churn in his guts. Hell. He could do with a hit of Violaine right about now.
“I don’t know.” His words came out stiff through a tight jaw. “How about we just concentrate on what we’re doing?”
The passage ended in another door, this one a shiny kind of metal. It slid open automatically as they approached, and beyond the opening, more lights came on. Rian stepped over the threshold and stopped. Because his damn feet wouldn’t take him any farther, no matter how he fought his body’s reactions. Frecking hell. His cold sweat had turned into chilled shivers, but he locked his muscles, because when he reacted, the Reidar won.
None of the crew noticed his silent battle for calm. They walked past him and fanned out in the lab. A lab identical to every other Reidar lab he’d ever seen. A lab indistinguishable from the one where he’d been tortured and experimented on for months on end.
It was all white and silver, blinding and aching to sensitive eyes. To the left were the platforms for the invisible cages where the captives were kept. In the center, gurneys were positioned with a hovering instrument mechanism above it, various protrusions making it look like a giant mechanical insect. To the right were the holoscreens where the Reidar recorded information and observed the subjects while their machines did most of the work. Of course, occasionally a Reidar or two liked to get up close and personal for the more special examinations and experiments—
He forced a hard breath through his nose, because his jaw had locked over the sick feeling burning up inside him.
I am stronger than this. I’m the one in control now. They can’t touch me any longer.
Repeating the mantra he’d held onto like a prayer in the first weeks after he’d escaped didn’t help lessen the storm raging inside him.
Have to get out of here. But his crew kept him right where he was. None of them knew what had happened to him, not even Zahli. He couldn’t let them see how weak he really was inside, like shattered glass someone had swept into a pile because there was no way to put the pieces back together.
A hand touched his arm, and inside he flinched, but outside he’d become stone. He glanced down to see Ella staring up at him. Oh, right. She knew the truth. Anger clashed with a rising surge of relief, like something warm, familiar, and comforting wrapping around him. The rage struggled against the tide, trying to rise up, but the warmth simply smothered it until his muscles started to relax.
Ella’s hand on his arm felt too hot, as if she had a fever, while her moss-colored eyes seemed to darken a touch. And then the relief inside him transformed into something else entirely. Something effervescent, something heated in a different way. He went beyond relaxed and started tightening up all over again.
The fog cleared from his mind for a starkly lucid moment as the memory of what happened the last time Ella touched him surfaced. She’d shot him up with a dose of something so full of raw, seductive pleasure he’d nearly lost his head and taken her on the floor of her cabin. She’d claimed she didn’t know how or why it’d happened, and he’d warned her never to touch him again.
He wrenched out of her hold but then changed his mind and grabbed her shoulder, yanking her closer to him. She’d used her damned enchantress powers on him.
“I told
you to never touch me again.”
“What you tell me to do and what I choose to do will always be two entirely separate things.”
He clenched his jaw as a burst of frustration erupted through him. “If you don’t follow my orders, there will be consequences. Don’t forget you’re a guest on my ship. I can have you removed and left on a backwater planet just like this one, at risk of being taken by the Reidar again, any time I want.”
She leaned up toward him, not the least cowed by his threat.
“You won’t ever do that. I’m too important to you and your personal war. And I won’t ever stop trying to help you, Rian. You think you’ve built this impenetrable shell around the truths inside you, but in moments like the one that just passed, I can feel everything inside of you burning me here.” She touched the middle of her chest, right over her heart.
His fingers went slack, and she tugged out of his hold. Before he could pull his brain out of a free-fall spiral, she strolled off to join Nyah on the other side of the large room.
This time when he looked around the lab, he felt nothing at all. Ella had done something to him. Again. But he’d never be thankful, not when she kept using her freaky Arynian abilities to invade his private hell. The constant icy rage might be cold comfort, but it was all he had left after everything the Reidar put him through. Instead of losing himself in a bottle in the back of some dinky, ass-end-of-nowhere bar every night, he’d used that emptiness and fury in his drive to see the Reidar extinguished from this universe.
He rolled his shoulders and forced himself to move, striding across the lab to where Tannin and Lianna studied a crystal display. Lines of text written in Reidar flowed across the screen. Rian caught a few words, phrases that made his blood go icy again. No way did he want to hang around in here while they translated the information. His quota of patience for the day had well and truly run out. If any locals found them, he’d be more inclined to shoot them with his pulse pistol than bother explaining. And then Zahli would give him one of her lectures.
Sure, ’cos it’s got nothing to do with the bad vibes you’re rocking.
“Tannin, download everything you can. We’ll take it back to the Imojenna and get the ship’s computer to translate it.”
The tech analyst pulled his commpad out of his pocket and set it against the crystal display.
Rian glanced over his shoulder to where the rest of the crew stood.
“This place gives me the creeps.” Nyah crossed her arms and rubbed her hands over her biceps.
“I agree,” Zahli replied. “I’ve seen enough. I’m going to wait outside.”
She paused to kiss Tannin on the cheek then headed back down the corridor, Nyah and Ella trailing in her wake.
Rian resisted the urge to tap his boot impatiently and returned his attention to where the tech analyst worked. After a few silent moments, with the tension expanding like a bubble stretched to the point of bursting, Tannin at last picked up the commpad.
“Okay. I think I managed to download the entire store of information.”
Rian dropped his hand to rest on the butt of his pulse pistol. “Good. Let’s get out of here before someone turns up asking questions.”
He strode out of the lab, forcing his steps to remain even, despite the urge to run tightening his thighs. Outside in the balmy night air, he waited for the last of his crew to clear the doorway then used the codes to close the mountain up. The door clicked into place, looking like no one had ever disturbed it. He scuffed their footprints in the dirt to make sure it didn’t look like they led inside.
The trip back on the shuttle was mostly silent, apart from Tannin and Zahli murmuring to each other every now and then. The closer they got to the Imojenna, the tenser Rian became. Christ. He needed that bottle of Violaine in his cabin before he sat down to face whatever information they’d gleaned from the lab’s computers.
The thought of what they might find in the downloaded files brought the churning, icy swell back, and he clenched all his muscles to stop from fidgeting in his seat.
As they parked the shuttle and his crew disembarked, he caught the knowing stare Ella sent his way. Anger burned away some of his chill.
Damned priestess. She might have been right—he might need her and those Arynian abilities to use against the Reidar—but that didn’t mean he had to put up with her meddling. He stomped off the shuttle and paused while Sen locked it.
“Anyone who wants to go join in the party, they’re more than welcome to. We’re staying dirtside until I’ve seen the contents of the Reidar files. You all might as well go enjoy yourselves while you’ve got the chance.”
The sober atmosphere hanging around the crew seemed to lift…though Rian stayed separated, trapped in his dark, oily shadow.
The crew all voiced their thanks and enthusiasm, breaking away toward the lights and noise of the festivities.
Tannin tossed him the commpad then dropped an arm over Zahli’s shoulders and moved off with the rest of the crew. Even Ella went along, linking her arm with Nyah, though the priestess cast him one last unreadable look before she disappeared around a building.
Rian forced out a long breath as he shoved the commpad in his pocket. Looked like it was just him and the Imojenna tonight. After the adventures of the day, the prospect actually drained some of the tension from his spine. He could set himself up in his office with a bottle of Violaine and not have to worry about being interrupted or ignore the disapproving glares from his sister.
He glanced along the path his crew had taken, then headed in the opposite direction, toward the spaceport. Didn’t matter about the empty chasm in the middle of his chest. Because the only thing that could ever fill the hole was the destruction of every Reidar in the galaxy. And while he might be a long way off from that goal, one day he would see it realized. Or die trying.
Chapter Eight
Tocarra
He’d stopped feeling his feet about six hours ago.
Zander paused at the base of a chest-high jumble of rocks, staring at them as though he was plotting a way to climb over and continue on. But really, it was just an excuse to give his numb legs a rest. Frecking christ.
His shoulders and upper arms burned from the burden of carrying Jaren—still unconscious and unresponsive—on a litter they’d strung together from some sturdy branches and ripped-up lengths of thermal blanket. And as for his boots…they were going in a waste chute the second he could find something else to stick on his feet. They’d been designed to look important and match his dress uniform, not actually walk in.
For the first time in his life, he felt every one of his thirty-six years. Old war injuries that hadn’t bothered him for a long while throbbed, while his latest injuries burned, and his head pulsed with a deep ache. The constant worry about Jaren’s injuries wasn’t helping his pounding skull in the least.
Overall, he felt like shite.
And they still had at least two hours of daylight left they should utilize, if they wanted to get out of this godforsaken wilderness soon enough to save the kid.
Overhead, thick, dark clouds bubbled up. If a storm was coming, they might need to find shelter pretty quickly. The prospect of more delays should have frustrated him, but despite his drive to get Jaren some medical attention, setting up an early camp started to sound better with each aching step. And though she hadn’t said a word, he could see Petros had been pushed to the limit as well. He needed her to keep it together, because without her assistance in carrying Jaren, help and medical treatment were that much farther away.
Luckily, despite the personal hell he was firmly entrenched in—like living out Mikel’s death all over again through Jaren—Petros had been an easy hiking partner. After they’d buried Nazari in a shallow grave and stacked stones over the disturbed earth to protect her body from scavengers, his mood had been about as dark as it could get. As he and Petros had set out much later than the dawn departure he’d planned, he’d been prepared to spend the day in uncomfortabl
e, mistrustful silence.
But somewhere between the time he’d spent up against her while the ship searched for them and her assertion that if he trusted Rian, then he could trust her, a little of his wariness had drained away to be replaced by curiosity. That, and the need to be distracted from his constant worry over whether Jaren would make it—the kid seeming worse with each hour.
He still suspected Mae was up to something, that she hid more than she revealed about her motivation for being here. He was fully aware those reasons were probably going to punch him in the face at some point. But he’d lost two good soldiers while another practically circled the drain, and he’d nearly been killed four times. With little energy left to expend on suspicion, he was damn well going to cut himself a break. At least until they got out of this frecked-to-hell forest.
After an hour into the hike, they’d begun talking, starting off on safe topics. He’d told her about the Swift Brion and its crew—nothing she probably didn’t already know or couldn’t easily find out—and they’d swapped a few war stories mostly related to Rian, then moved on to life before the Assimilation Wars. Somehow, he’d found himself offering a few tidbits about himself that he’d never shared with anyone else. Everything else had fallen away, and they’d just been a couple of people taking a not-so-leisurely stroll through the woods, talking like they had years of familiarity between them.
The progression from belligerent silence to spilling his guts had been seamless, and when he’d found himself confessing that he didn’t have anything resembling a life outside the IPC, he’d belatedly realized she’d quite possibly worked him over for information like a pro. However, if that had been her intent, she’d kind of failed, because she’d told him just as many personal things about herself.
He glanced down at the lieutenant, her breathing uneven. If she was feeling the effects of the last day, she hadn’t complained. Of course, he didn’t expect a soldier like Petros would. But he could tell she was at least uncomfortable in the tight way her lips pressed together and the lines of strain on her face that hadn’t been there before.
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