What he had said slithered in her mind. “You can’t die?” she whispered.
“Reapers live well over one hundred, Caitlin,” he told her. “The only way to kill us is by fire.”
“Those women didn’t know that?” she asked. She thought of the dead women in the hold: the women who had tortured him.
Khiershon drew in a long breath then exhaled slowly. “I think they forgot about it their rush to get me to tell them where Raphaella is hiding. Lucky for me they forgot to seal the entrance to the cave system as well else you would never have found me.”
“Raphaella. The Amazeen princess,” Caitlin said and heard the jealousy in her voice.
The Reaper turned his head so she could not see his smile of satisfaction. “She is an ally and nothing more, Caitlin.”
“That’s not what I read in Kaelia Kahmal’s journal.”
“Kaelia,” he said on a long breath. “By the gods that bitch was meaner than a cornered ghoret.”
“A what?”
“A viper,” he supplied. “The most poisonous reptile on my world.” He cocked one shoulder. “At least to humans. They call it a two-step. When it bites you, you have time to take two steps then you’re dead before you hit the ground.”
“That doesn’t give you much time for an antidote.”
“The venom is so powerful and so fast-acting, there is no antidote for it.”
“Can it hurt you?”
“Its bite only makes a Reaper wish he was dead.”
Caitlin shuddered. Snakes were a private nightmare for her. “Tell me about these women,” she said, wanting to take her mind off thoughts of reptiles.
“The Amazeen? What do you wish to know?”
“If I understand correctly the concept of Dearg Duls, your race is similar to Earth vampire legends.”
“We have a common ancestry, aye.”
“Then are Amazeen related in some way to the myth of the Amazons on my home world?”
Khiershon shrugged. “I know little about Amazeen history,” he admitted. “Perhaps they are descendants. What do you know of your Amazons?”
Caitlin tried to remember her college anthropology courses. The subject of myths and legends hadn’t interested her all that much. What little she remembered about the Amazons she had learned from her roommate who was a lesbian.
“They were women warriors so vicious the Greek army feared them. They were said to have descended from Ares, the god of war, and that they ruled their society with an iron hand.”
“Amazeens are a brutal, warlike tribe,” said Khiershon. “They enslave the males of their world, forcing them to perform tasks assigned to the women of other worlds: cooking, cleaning, caring for the female children.”
“The Amazons mated with the men of neighboring tribes but any male offspring from the union were either slain or sent back to their fathers.”
“There are no male children on Amazeen. Grown males are kept as slaves for mating purposes, but their arms and legs are mutilated to weaken them so they can not challenge the Amazeen’s power.”
“You were not treated like that,” said Caitlin, grateful such torture had not happened.
“Aye, but I was. My parasite healed me quickly. Lucky for me they never got a chance to do to me what they did to Iyan.”
Caitlin looked up, hoping to gain some insight into this man’s angry cohort. “What did they do to him?”
He pondered the wisdom of telling her; worried that Iyan would be even angrier should Caitlin have such damaging knowledge of him. For a moment, he was sorry he’d brought up the subject, then thought perhaps allowing her a glimpse of Iyan’s tormented soul would go a long way in making allies of the two.
“You are a Healer,” he began. “You know of SRY.”
“The male determining protein?” At his nod, she said, “In mammals, the primary step in male sex determination is the initiation of testis development which depends on the expression of the Y-Chromosome-linked testis determining gene, SRY.”
“Aye. Amazeen wish to prevent male births when they mate. They have found a way to do this.”
“To kill the male fetus in utero?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Despite their willingness to inflict pain in others, they are not especially fond of it for themselves. Abortion in any form might cause a degree of discomfort they wish to avoid. The only two pains they willingly tolerate are the removal of their right breast...”
“To better wield a bow,” Caitlin put in. “Like the Amazons of Earth.”
“Aye.”
“And the other pain would be to give birth to another Amazeen.”
He nodded. “Precisely so.”
“How do they make sure they only have female children? Our world has been trying to come up with a sure-fire way for years, but we still don’t have one that is foolproof.”
“There is an injection they give their young ones before the girl reaches menarche to assure that her immune system is prepared to fertilize only those eggs with the female gene. The injection is repeated about a month before she mates for the first time and then a booster is given every ten years.”
Caitlin felt a chill go through her. “What kind of injection?”
Khiershon looked away from her. “Their immunologists take the testicles from a captive, pulverize them gently, then freeze the results. The injection comes from this pulp.”
“They emasculated McGregor?” she whispered.
“Aye,” he replied. “There have been nine females born of his essence.”
“No wonder he hates me.”
“He dislikes all women.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“Nor do I, but he must learn that not all females are like the Amazeen.”
“As all males are not like the Reapers?”
Khiershon smiled. “All men are Reapers at heart, beloved. Some are just more adept at hiding the beast within them.”
Chapter Ten
“It makes no difference,” said Iyan.
“She understands your anger,” Khiershon told him.
Iyan locked his blue gaze on his friend. “There is no way any female can understand how I feel, Khier.”
“There are tribes on my home world who mutilate their females in a like manner,” Caitlin explained. She refused to flinch as McGregor’s stare settled hatefully on her. “The girl’s clitoris is removed and her vaginal opening sewn shut. Only her husband-generally a male many years older than her-has the right to breed with her and he must force himself through the stitching. It is a painful...”
“Why are you telling me this?” Iyan demanded.
“So you will know that men are not the only ones who have suffered such evil, Iyan,” Khiershon answered for Caitlin. “There is a woman on board this ship who has suffered so.”
“Barb knows how you feel and she is willing to talk with you...”
“You keep that bitch away from me!” Iyan shouted. “I have no need of any woman’s understanding! I’ve had enough female hands on me to last a lifetime!”
With that said, he pivoted and stalked off, leaving Caitlin to wonder if they had done the right thing in speaking to him.
“He’ll come around,” Khiershon suggested. “He’ll seek out your friend before the day is over.”
“You think so?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip.
“I know he will. If for no other reason than to see which of them suffered the most.” He chuckled. “That, too, is the Serenian way.”
Caitlin and the other women sat around the conference table. Each of them was deep in thought, their nerves stretched to the breaking point.
“How far are we from the anomaly?” asked Marti.
“He says within a day’s journey,” said Caitlin.
“If it’s out there, it’s not on any star map I’ve ever seen of this quadrant,” Marti protested.
“It’s there. It’s how the Rysalians found Earth in the first place. They use it as a portal into ou
r side of the universe.”
“I’m assuming that’s a far piece from our little blue-green planet,” said Marti.
“Six months from their door to ours,” Caitlin replied.
“That’s all?” Pat exclaimed. “It took us over four years just to reach Pluto!”
“We don’t have their technological advances in space travel,” Lisa reminded the weapons specialist.
“Aye, we sure as hell don’t. Just what are we to do for fuel?” asked Barb. “Or has he given any thought to that slight problem? We have just enough to get to-”
“The Ravenwind will be right behind us through the wormhole. It will pass us and head for a planet called Chale. Once there, it will re-charge its engines then take on necessary fuel pods for us, bring them back to our ship and we’ll follow them to Chale.” Caitlin rubbed her forehead.
“And then what?” asked Helen.
“Then, our ship gets a major overhaul in some secret facility there,” Caitlin answered. “We will be retrofitted for a whole new fuel expulsion unit that will see us to our destination in half the time it takes for us to go from home to Saturn these days.”
“And then what?” Helen repeated.
“Then,” Caitlin said, her eyes dark with what to the others looked like worry, “we help Khiershon and his man liberate his brothers.”
“From where?” asked Lisa.
“From a place called the Titaness,” Caitlin replied. “It’s some kind of maximum security fortress on Rysalia Prime.”
“Oh, I see,” Marti said in a pleasant voice. “We go the impossible mission route, eh? Just waltz in there, extract some prisoners, weapons blasting, boogie out of there, beam back to our ship, and scat like the demons of hell are hot on our heels.” She arched a thick blond brow. “All that and never chip a nail or get a single run in our pantyhose.”
“Works for me,” Lisa said with a grin.
“This is serious, people,” snapped Caitlin.
“Seriously bizarre,” Helen commented.
“We aren’t trained for that sort of stuff, Caitlin!” Cathy protested. “Does he realize we are not a military unit?”
“He knows.”
“And is willing to risk our lives for his cause,” Pat mumbled. She was the only woman among them trained in physical combat. “How sweet of him.”
“He can’t go in there himself,” Caitlin said, not looking at the other women. “We are his only hope.”
“To do what?” Helen demanded.
Caitlin shrugged. “To save the lives of his brothers.”
“And just how are we to do that?” Marti grated.
Caitlin looked up at her and smiled tiredly. “We waltz in there, extract them, beam up, and scat.”
“Just like that?” Helen grunted.
“Just like that.”
“And what are those Amazeens supposed to be doing while we’re doing our femavenger routine?” Pat asked.
“They won’t be expecting us,” Caitlin hedged. “They don’t know about us.”
“Okay, so what difference does that make?” Helen prodded. “The telling point there is they don’t know us. How are we to get into their prison and free men I’m sure are well-guarded if we don’t have the proper credentials.”
“We will have,” Caitlin replied.
“From where?” Pat insisted.
“Leave that to us,” McGregor snarled from the doorway. When the women turned to look at him, they found him staring at Barb. “Lady, I would like a word with you.”
Having been apprised of the warrior’s situation, Barb nodded and stood. She caught Caitlin’s gaze as she turned and headed for the door.
Iyan’s right cheek jumped in what might pass for a smile for the forbidding man as Barb joined him. He stepped out of her way, indicating she was to precede him from the room.
“McGregor?” Caitlin called and found his frosty gaze locked on her. When he didn’t reply, she took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and then spoke to him in a soft, but firm, voice. “Treat her as the lady you called her.”
The warrior stiffened, his shoulders taut, his eyes narrowed. “I am well aware of how a lady is to be treated,” he snapped, pivoting on his heel. The women watched as he put a possessive hand to the small of Barb’s back as he escorted her down the corridor.
“That one could be a handful,” drawled Cathy.
“More than a handful could be painful.” Lisa giggled.
Caitlin laughed despite the deep concern that was making her as nervous as a green recruit on her first space mission. She slumped in the chair, closed her eyes, and shut out the crude remarks her female crew was making.
“What’s troubling you, Cait?” Helen asked, leaning toward her friend.
“This is so far beyond our experience,” Caitlin sighed. “I’m so afraid there is going to be real trouble ahead, Hel.”
“We’ve seen trouble before, my friend,” Helen reminded her.
“Not like this.” Caitlin opened her eyes and stared unseeingly across the conference room. “We were both insolated during the war, working inside buildings while our men folk fought and died. I saw the carnage of the battles up close, but I was never involved with the skirmishes.” She looked at Helen. “You were inside a bunker two miles inside the planet, protected even more so than the rest of us.”
“Pat saw some action.”
“Nothing that was life threatening.”
Helen shook her head. “No, but our lives are up for grabs every time we step foot inside one of these blazing candles.”
“I know.”
“And we gotta go some day.”
“Aye.”
“And we each took an oath to help mankind.”
“I’m afraid, Hel.”
“Yeah, well, me, too, but what will be will be.” The communications specialist shrugged. “And there’s nothing we can do to change what the gods have decreed for us.”
Khiershon Cree lay listening to the conversation two decks below where he lay. He sensed Caitlin’s fear and it hurt him as no mental thought ever had. Still weak as he was, he could not go to her and take her in his arms, comfort her, and assure her all would be well. She knew nothing of the resistance forces in place on Chale as well as on Rysalia. He turned to his side, physical pain wracking his battered body, and as he did, a white-hot streak of agony shot down his spine. He cried out, gripping the cot so hard, the thin mattress ripped apart in his grasp.
“Captain?” the warrior left to guard Khiershon exclaimed as he hurried to his commander’s side. “What is it, sir?”
Cree was panting, sweat oozing from his face and chest. The force of the pain enveloping his body was so intense, he could barely draw breath, let alone answer.
The guard ran to the Com-Link. “Dr. Kelly, he’s in trouble! Hurry!” he yelled into the unit.
Caitlin’s head snapped up and she shot out of her chair like a rocket, Lisa fast on her heels.
Iyan frowned as he saw the Terran woman running down the corridor toward him as the elevator doors opened. He barely had time to move out of her way as she and another female plowed into the cage.
“Sickbay!” Caitlin shouted.
McGregor grabbed her arm. “What’s happened?”
“I don’t know!” Caitlin hissed, jerking free of his hold.
Before McGregor could ask anything else, the elevator stopped on the sickbay deck and the Terran woman shoved him out of the way and ran from the cage. He stumbled as the other woman slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around in a full circle as she made to follow the Healer. His jaw tight, his fists balled, he ran after them.
Caitlin was shocked to see the bright red infusing her patient’s face. He lay gasping for breath, his hands digging at his throat, his feet pushing against the mattress. His eyes were bulging, his handsome face set in rigid lines of agony.
“Khiershon!” she cried out, reaching for his arms. She tried pulling his hands away, sickened at the livid gouges in his flesh, but he wa
s too strong.
McGregor shouldered her aside and grabbed the Reaper’s wrists. “Help me, Dockery!” he told the warrior. Between the two of them, they managed to drag Cree’s hands from his torn flesh. Iyan turned to Caitlin. “Don’t just stand there. Sedate him, woman!”
“I will not! It could....”
“Do it!” McGregor bellowed. “You can’t kill him!”
Caitlin flinched, but looked to Lisa. “You heard him!”
Lisa pivoted and ran to the medication unit.
“What’s causing this?” Caitlin asked, realizing she was trembling.
“N...no!” they heard Cree gasping. “N...no!”
McGregor shook his head. “I have no idea.” He was pale, his arms trembling as he and the guard kept Cree on the table. “Unless it something with his parasite.”
Lisa rushed back to the cot and slapped a syringe into Caitlin’s hand. “Domatripitol,” she reported. “100 milligrams.” Caitlin nodded and used the syringe like a dart to inject the med into Cree’s arm.
“No!” Cree screamed, then went limp, his head swiveling toward Caitlin.
She reached out to touch his cheek and gasped. “My God! He’s burning up!”
“Aye,” McGregor agreed. “I know.” He let go of Cree’s arm and looked down at his blistered palms. He lifted his hand and stared at the mark.
“How is that possible?” Lisa asked, seeing the blister.
“Burning,” Cree whispered, his voice a croaking sound.
Caitlin bent over him. “What?”
“They are burning my brothers,” said Cree.
“You can’t know that, Khier,” McGregor said softly. “You’re too far away from Rysalia to sense that.”
Cree’s words slurred as the potent sedative began to shut down his world. “Felt them, Iyan. Close by. Heat. Pain.”
“Not your brothers, my friend,” McGregor said, smoothing the hair from the Reaper’s sweat-slick forehead. “They are all in the Titaness, remember?”
“Captain!” the Com-Link interrupted.
McGregor shook his head angrily. “Not now, Nyndham!” he ordered.
“A ship is fast approaching the wormhole, sir!” Nyndham reported from the bridge of The Ravenwind.
DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy Page 8