by Viola Grace
An Enjel who lost her wings and everything else learns that there is more to life than a past that can’t be changed.
Minerva loses her wings when her home is attacked. She takes control of a mech and walks the bot into battle. When she is removed from the wreckage, it is determined that the bot ceased to work two days earlier and her latent talent has risen.
She is taken to Morganti Base to heal from her injuries and train her new talent. From there, it is on to Ohkhan Citadel and a day-to-day existence until she meets a man who wants nothing, asks for nothing and offers a lot.
Astien is an Enjel crossbreed who is fascinated by the woman who has all the mannerisms of one of his kind but no wings. His fascination turns to affection, and from there, a friendship deepens until he needs to know everything about the woman who will not talk about herself.
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Broken Wings
Copyright © 2015 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0169-6
Cover art by Carmen Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by eXtasy Books Inc or
Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc
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Broken Wings
Tales of the Citadel Book 41
By
Viola Grace
Dedication
Well as this release date, Jan 1, 2015, marks my 300th solo story, I would like to thank the readers, my steadfast editor, Janet, my cover artists and my publisher, eXtasy Books. Without all of you, I would not have made it this far. So…shall I shoot for 500?
Chapter One
“Cut them off.”
The doctor froze as he tried to set the shattered bones in her wings. They had been smashed to dust.
“Minny, that is a little drastic.”
“Cut them off, seal the wounds and I can get back into the fight.”
As if pinpointing her statement, an explosion rocked the field hospital.
“Minny, you are young. We can put you in a tank and regenerate your wings.”
“Wonderful. I can have it done later. Now, Doctor, cut them off.”
“What will your mother say?”
Minerva took a deep breath. “I will ask her in the afterlife. Now, get the wings off so I can get back in this fight.”
He nodded to the nurse and Minerva inhaled the gas, hoping that she would wake up and the pain in her body would eclipse the hole in her soul.
She could still hear Dr. Mizoko screaming that she wasn’t well enough to return to the fight. With her uniform on and her back bandaged, she headed for the mech deployment area. Most of the mechs were designed to function with wings, but three were not. They had not gotten their retrofit before the attacks.
The Enjel colony of Decla was sitting on a mineral deposit worth billions of credits. They enjoyed a relatively simple life and had left the deposit where it was. Now, a mining consortium had decided that taking the entire area by force was a legitimate business move and the colonists were on the defensive.
All of the ten mechs had been mobilised, but three of them had never been fitted with the wing relays that allowed for greater precision of movement.
She sprinted for the pits where the mechs were stored and saw her favourite gleaming in the dimness. One of the mechanics came running toward her, his wings fluttering.
“Cadet Nhu, what are you doing here?”
“I need the Arcit 2 warmed up, loaded and rations for three days, Sergeant Klasko.”
He paused. “Where is the Commander?”
“Next to the mark my wings made when the wall crushed us.”
Klasko looked her in the eye and nodded. “I will get it ready. When do you want to take it?”
“Five days ago.”
He turned and his team started to swarm the Arcit 2 from above and below. Minerva extended her arm and leaned against the wall while she waited for the systems to warm up.
A nervous private came up to her with a pouch, and she checked it, nodding at the rations inside. “Thank you.”
With her essentials taken care of, she headed for the walkway that led into the centre of the mech’s chest. The skin that the doc had grafted on her back was holding, but it made her feel light and heavy at the same time.
The interior was lit, and she could see the systems come on line as the mechanics finished their work. Klasko hovered in the open door of the chest plate as she settled into the grip of the machine.
“It is a lot stronger than the Lovixes you are used to driving, Cadet.”
“Thank you for the warning, Sergeant. I plan on taking it out of the city as fast as I can.”
He swallowed. “Good luck.”
She nodded and he sealed her in. She waited for ten minutes, gaining familiarity with the positions of all the displays, waiting for the magic words.
“Arcit 2, you are good for departure.”
She kept her vision trained on the sky as the elevator lifted the hundred-foot robot out of the depths of the mechanics’ pit and into the grey and smoky daylight. The giant bot rose up, but the moment she could she lifted one leg, she planted her foot on the edge of the approaching paved road, and she pushed the bot up and into the light as quickly as she could.
Her back burned, but she moved her feet and her hands as she walked from the armoury out of the city.
The moment she was clear of inhabited areas, she started shooting at every mining tank and infiltration vessel that she could see. Being in a city that was suffering under annihilation bombing had been a week of psychological torture. When she asked for them to cut her wings, she hadn’t been thinking straight, but if she hadn’t done it, being out in this vehicle would not have been possible.
She crossed her world with long strides, destroying all mining company vehicles in the way. Silence began to fall in her wake.
On the third day, she faced the main camp for the invading forces. Fire took care of their dwellings, and as the ground forces fired rocket after rocket at her, she waited them out. Ammunition did not last forever when you were blindly aggressive.
Minerva took careful aim with the last of her rockets, and she destroyed the attack vehicles, the power systems and the water supply.
After she had expended everything the suit had to give, she waited for them to find a way to destroy her.
Welders climbed the suit and she brushed them off.
Imagine her surprise when Sector Guard ships began to arrive and they requested that she leave her bot.
She croaked in the com, “I would love to, by my blood has firmly grafted me to my harness. I would be amenable to medical assistance.”
“Then you shall have it.” There was a pause. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“You
are an Enjel?”
“I was. I don’t think I qualify anymore.” She was tired, exhausted, but for her, there was literally no way out of this on her own.
“We will clean this up here, and when they are gone, we will have a full medical team standing by. Can you last an hour?”
“I can last. I made it this far.”
It took four medics to ease her out of the mech. Her graft had grown exponentially and was incorporating the mech into her body.
“A twenty-three-year-old Enjel woman isn’t usually left to enter combat.”
“The women had to, all the men were dead. They went out to negotiate with the mining consortium, and none of them came back.” She was being carried on a gurney, face down.
“What happened?”
“The bombs started falling, people started dying, so the mechs were called into action. They got most of the aircraft out of the sky and drove the assault vehicles back from the city gates, but they don’t work if their pilot is shot, and the transparent heart of those models made the Enjel inside a perfect target. The Arcit 2 is a much better design, but it isn’t built for wings.”
“What happened to your wings?”
“My mother and I were evacuating a building that had been previously hit, and it was hit while we were inside. She is still trapped under that wall, but I was pinned by my wings. They had been smashed to pulp, so I had them cut them off. If I ever get the money, I will consider regeneration.”
She heard voices muttering around her and a cooling pressure covered the wounds in her back.
“Rest easy, miss. We have you now.”
She felt a hand on her head so much like her mother’s touch that tears dripped from her eyes and soaked the gurney beneath her. The hand stroked her hair and sobs broke free.
They sedated her and her grief got some rest.
Minerva woke, floating in a tank in what felt like a spacecraft. She was breathing oxygenated liquid and her hair wasn’t floating around her in its normal halo. She tried to move her shoulders, but they were stiff.
A medic must have been watching her closely, because he came running to the side of the tank the moment that she woke.
He touched the tank. “You are recovering, but your body defies our healing. All we can do is seal you up and hope for the best.”
“My people?” She mouthed the words, but he nodded as if he could hear her.
“Jela has sent a crew of colonists and an armed detachment to assist the survivors. There were many that were hidden or trapped in the city, and many more in the care of your able doctors.”
She closed her eyes and sank to the bottom of the tank.
“I am sorry, miss. Your hair was grafted into your flesh in places. We had to crop it.”
Minerva blinked and her eyes burned briefly before the soothing solution she was in whisked her tears away.
She nodded and swallowed, working out one more question. “Where are you taking me?”
“Sector Guard Base Teklan. If anyone has a chance of regenerating your wings, it is Reset.”
She blinked and shook her head. “No.”
The medic leaned back in surprise and then touched the tank again. “No?”
“I don’t want them back. They were the same wings that my mother wore and I will keep them off me in memory.”
“What if you change your mind?”
“If I do, I am sure that I can beg this Reset to help me. For now, I want to feel their loss.”
Another staff member came in, but his clothing was a darker hue with striping on it. The medic moved quickly to the newcomer and recounted their conversation.
The man moved toward her, and she took in his grace and his easy motions as he pressed his hand to the tank. “Good day, miss.”
She straightened her shoulders and said, “Good day.”
“I understand you do not want your wings back.”
She swallowed and tried to explain. She enunciated clearly so he could read her lips. “My wings are gone. Broken. Smashed beyond all recognition. I need to accept that. When I have moved beyond it, I will contact someone and look for help.”
He cocked his head and he smiled, his bronze skin glowing and his dark eyes smiling. “I understand. You wish to grieve and the loss is a physical reminder.”
She nodded. “How long must I remain in the tank?”
“We are delivering you to Morganti tomorrow, and you can remain in it until landing if you like. It is closer than Teklan anyway.”
She nodded. “My name is, Minerva—”
He completed her declaration, “Minerva Nhu. Daughter of Commander and General Nhu, heads of the defence force on Decla.”
She smiled weakly. “Last survivor of the Nhu line off Jela.”
“But not the last Enjel in the universe. You are not alone.”
She sighed and pressed both of her palms to the plexi. “But I am the last Nhu of the Decla colony. If I go to Jela, I will be locked in the Aerie and I will have to seek a mate blindly. My family left their home world to give the women in our line freedom, and it dies out in one generation.”
“You are not dead, Minerva Nhu.”
She couldn’t say the words in her heart, that she wasn’t alive anymore either. Her state was limbo, and the coldness in her soul was spreading. It was not a good diagnosis.
Chapter Two
Morganti Base was clean, neat, well organized and surprisingly busy. The base physician met her at the shuttle and helped her out of the tank and into the building.
He kept his arm low so as not to stress her shoulders as they walked the halls. “Well, this is Sector Guard Base Morganti. We are honoured to have you here. My name is Dr. Nywyn, but you can call me Effin.”
“Minerva Nhu, but you can call me Minny.” Her voice was hoarse from coughing out the tank fluid.
“Well, Minny, when you declined Teklan, they asked to bring you here for an assessment. They want to determine if you have an underlying psychic talent that you have not been aware of.”
They were walking slowly, and a line of children went giggling through the hallway with one of the little girls flicking in and out of view.
“There are children here?”
“Yes, the Sector Guard encourages the teams to be made up of mated partners. There is an inevitable result from that interaction if the species are genetically compatible.” He smiled. “And they like to play tag in the corridor.”
Minny wanted to run down the hall and play with them. She was only two years out of the schoolroom herself. Her introduction to adulthood had been rather aggressive and sudden. One moment she was a cadet, and the next, she was climbing into a mech.
Effin eased her into the Medical bay and settled her carefully on a bed that had a gel surface to support her back with cool gentleness.
“Do you get a lot of folk with intensive damage to tissue?”
“Being a Guardsman is dangerous work. Reset is a great asset to the team, but she can’t be everywhere at the same time. She is only used for large repairs when no other option is available.”
He talked and moved around her, setting up a bevy of machines.
“The Sector Guard bases try and take care of their people.”
She smiled slightly. “It must be nice. When my family joined the colonists leaving Jela, it was to start a new life in a society where women and men could live in harmony. This was achieved by only having mated couples on the journey. The children born there were educated in equality, but we always knew that there was another way to do things, and one day, it might land on our heads. The attack from the miners was not anticipated.”
“My sympathies for the loss of your family.”
She swallowed heavily. “Thank you.”
He patted her hand. “The units here will move and operate on their own. Please feel free to breathe and move as necessary.”
“Do I need to be quiet?”
“No, if you
have questions, ask them.”
The machines began to move over her, lights hummed from the gel bed itself.
It took Minerva a while to formulate the question that was running around her mind, but she asked it with as much control as she could muster. “What happens to me now?”
Effin paused and stood as close to her as he could. “You go on, you get better and you find a new way to live.”
She nodded and the scans continued.
“Well, I don’t know what your talent is, but your wings are trying to regrow. There is something going on, but I cannot pin it down.”
“Can you stop my wings?”
Effin paused. “What?”
“Can you stop them from regrowing?” She swallowed.
“Why?”
“I was raised at Decla colony. I am not an Enjel and don’t fit in on Jela. I don’t want to be an Enjel anymore.” She sounded like a petulant child, even to her own ears.
He paused next to her and helped her to sit up. “You are an Enjel and always will be, at the genetic level. Your wings or lack thereof has no bearing on it.”
“I don’t want anyone to look at them and comment. I am not what I was two weeks ago.”
He eased her to the side so she could dangle her legs over the edge of the bed. “I am going to bring in a consultant, and we will see if we can halt the progress that your body wants to make.”
The words were enigmatic, and she sat with her legs dangling until a small girl brushed against her foot. There was a hiss from nearby and another girl became visible. The two stood and scowled at each other, having a rapid conversation in a weird short hand.
One of the girls turned and smiled. “You don’t look good.”
The other elbowed her. “You aren’t supposed to say that.”
Minerva smiled softly. “I don’t feel good.”