He touched the now lifeless jewels, then looked into her face. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Don’t be. I’d rather have your life. Besides, a low level of power remains. I won’t lose any stored data.”
“You strong enough for company?” Thom asked. “Friendlies?”
“Why?”
“Atletl and Celixia are climbing the temple stairs, backed by a squad of soldiers coming this way.”
“A little late, but I appreciate the gesture of support.” Nate gathered his energy to rise.
Bithia protested. “You’re still woozy.”
Gently but firmly, he removed her restraining hand and worked his way to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall. Thom watched, ready to step forward and help if needed. Fighting vertigo but on his feet, Nate said, “I want you to be the goddess one more time. I want you to be majorly impressive here, like you were on the road with those refugees we saved. Have you got enough power left to dazzle them?”
Eyes wide, she retreated a step, rubbing the gilintrae. “What do you mean? Why must I play the T’naritza role for Atletl and Celixia? Our allies know the truth about T’naritza.”
“Atletl’s soldiers don’t. We owe it to him and Celixia to reinforce what they’ve undoubtedly told the Githholz leaders—you’re the goddess, Huitlani is finished and Atletl played a major role in the victory. Part of my goal is to leave this planet with a chance to grow in a more civilized direction after we go.” Nate finished with gritted teeth, nausea racking his gut.
“This kinda plays hell with the Sectors cultural noninterference regs, don’t it?” Thom asked as an afterthought.
“Objection?”
“No.” The answer was prompt, crisp and cheerful. “I like the idea. Probably ought to leave it out of the report, though.”
“Reporting is the least of my worries at the moment, but thanks for the reminder.” Nate laughed.
“I see.” Bithia studied her plain blue dress. “I’m lacking in grandeur at the moment, but I can coax perhaps one more effect from the gilintrae’s reserves.”
“Good.” He turned to Thom. “Tell them we’re coming out to address the troops.”
He saluted and left the room.
“All right, then.” Nate took Bithia by the hand as if they were going to dance. “Ready, T’naritza? One last performance?”
She motioned for Nate to precede her through the short corridor. A faint green glow enveloped her, not as spectacular as the killing nimbus she’d deployed against Lolanta, but probably effective enough for this occasion, especially in the twilight.
Githholz soldiers now crowded the altar platform, and more were gathered on the steps.
As Nate and Lolanta emerged from the temple, Atletl held a curved sword aloft and waved it. “Silence for the words of the goddess.”
The buzz of conversation died away. Nate and Thom stood at attention beside the entrance to the temple. Nate kept one hand unobtrusively braced on the doorframe to steady himself against the waves of vertigo. Bithia came out onto the single step, glowing pale green, her long hair spread out in the air as if it had life of its own. Green and red sparks pulsed into the gathering darkness from the tips of her hair.
“We’ve fought a great battle here today, my warriors and I, and defeated not only the evil priestess Lolanta, but the greater evil she served.” Bithia’s voice was sonorous and sounded amplified to Nate.
More gilintrae tricks.
“My warriors and I carried out my father’s command and destroyed Nochen, where the Sarbordoni Clan and their evil gods held sway. We were assisted by my priestess and sister of the heart, Celixia.” She gestured at the priestess, who came forward to clasp her hand, the green glow reaching out to surround her for a moment. The two women exchanged a few words, Celixia nodding rapidly. Bithia gave her attention to Atletl next. “We relied on the strong arm and courageous heart of Atletl, Warrior of the Tolokon Totem, proud representative of the Githholz, whose sacred mission is to now bring peace and harmony to this troubled land.”
Atletl puffed up with visible pride as the crowd cheered for him, yelling his name and their approval of Bithia’s pronouncements.
She motioned for silence, obtaining it instantly, the crowd clearly in her sway. “I reward you for your service by giving you the hand of my sister Celixia in marriage.”
Bithia winked at Atletl as she said this.
“I’m honored, my Lady. I’ll honor, love and treasure her all my life.”
“Come and receive your bride.” Bithia made a sweeping gesture, summoning the warrior to her side.
Atletl strode forward with his customary swagger. Bithia took his outstretched hand and placed Celixia’s firmly in it. “What I have joined, let no person on Talonque dare to part.”
Atletl faced the crowd, showing off a beaming Celixia, twirling her as if dancing, and again there was great cheering and yelling.
Bithia raised her hand for silence one final time. “My warriors and I shelter here tonight, with your army as my honor guard. You must be gone before dawn to begin your tasks in the lowlands. My warriors and I will depart this place as well, to seek our path home to my father. Let this be a night of celebration!”
On that note, Bithia swept into the temple, leaving the throngs cheering and a wild party breaking out.
Nate studied the happy crowd of Githholz before he followed Thom inside the temple.
I hope they won’t be too drunk and hungover to march tomorrow, but that’s Atletl’s problem, not mine.
Shaking, Bithia leaned against the wall. “I’ll never act as the goddess again. Standing in front of a crowd and proclaiming grandiose things terrifies me.” Putting her forehead against the cool stones, she said, “Although I was happy to officially unite our friends. Celixia told me she wanted to marry Atletl, so I thought I’d try to give her as much status as I could.”
Nate strode to her and took her in his arms, kissing her forehead. “Well done. If Atletl and Celixia can’t build a better Talonque together, there’s nothing more we can do for them. Are you all right?”
She nodded wordlessly. “I found it a lot easier to prophesy from the safe confines of the healing chamber, when I didn’t know the people I was talking about and didn’t much care what happened.”
“We’re done with Talonque’s problems. Time to concentrate on getting ourselves home.” He stroked her soft hair and held her close. Thom discreetly withdrew to the entrance of the temple and left them alone.
Atletl and Celixia came to the temple later, bringing dinner. The five sat beside a small fire in the temple’s main chamber and shared a final, companionable evening together. When the meal ended, Nate studied his friends’ faces and raised the crude mug holding his wine. “In the land of my people, we propose a toast, or a blessing maybe you’d call it, at the end of a meal like this one.”
His comrades raised their mugs.
“To good friends, safe journeys and happiness. To us!” Nate and Thom touched cups, and then the others joined in, finally drinking the wine with laughter and light hearts.
Atletl rose from his seat by the fire, drawing Celixia with him. “We’ll take our leave now, my Lady, warriors. Rest assured we’ll be gone at first light.”
They all rose. Nate shook Atletl’s hand. “Giving you my thanks is inadequate. We couldn’t have survived this without your help.”
“It’s been my honor to serve with you.”
Then the Talonqueni left the temple, and Nate, Thom and Bithia were alone. “No more nation building for us,” Nate said. “Tomorrow we go find our ship and we’re out of here. Simple.”
“We hope,” Thom responded somberly.
“I guess we’ll see tomorrow.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the morning, Nate woke with an abrupt start, coming straight from a dream re-creating the events of yesterday, only with Huitlani wielding the sacrificial knife over an altar where Bithia lay helpless. Heart pounding, he sat and reassured hims
elf she slept beside him, safe and whole. Nate regarded the gloomy walls of the temple hallway where they’d camped for the night and frowned.
“Maybe Lolanta brought evil with her, but there sure as hell is something nasty about this place.” The unnaturally vivid quality of the dream convinced him it hadn’t come from his subconscious alone. This was, after all, the most ancient place of Huitlani’s on this side of the continent.
Nate pulled the blanket over Bithia’s shoulders. She murmured in her sleep and rolled toward him. Glad to know bad dreams weren’t disturbing her slumber, he joined Thom, who’d volunteered to take the remaining nightwatch so Nate could sleep. The sergeant sat at the entrance to the temple. In the gray dawn, Nate could make out a small bouquet of flowers on the top step across the sacrificial platform, left there for Bithia by some well-wisher.
“Are the Githholz gone?”
“Atletl got them moving out about an hour ago,” Thom said. “Guess he was a high-ranking officer or a prince after all.”
“Lucky for us he got assigned to our slave chain,” Nate said with a grin. “Shall I wake the lady and see what the day brings us, now that we’re done mixing in the politics and religion of this world?”
“No arguments from me.”
After a hasty breakfast, Nate set a course due north. They rode three of the four kemat Atletl left tethered for them at the foot of the temple stairs and led a fourth loaded with gear. By midmorning, they reached the river where the ambush had taken place.
Nate surveyed the area as he called a temporary halt to let the kemat drink. “I have to say Lolanta picked a good spot for her attack. Those boulders over there are the first real cover I’ve seen on this plateau. If we’d gotten into the dense woods over there, she never could have been sure of catching us.”
“I figure she waited to spring the trap until you were on this side alone because she knew damn well the rest of us would come for you,” Thom said.
“She was counting on your return.” Nate scowled at Bithia. “Nearly worked too. Close call for all of us.”
Another hour’s ride brought them to the edge of the forested segment of the plateau. He trotted into a long meadow. Reining in, Nate stared at a huge furrow plowed into the soft soil by the crash-landing Sectors ship months ago. The sides of the rut were easily nine feet high, the burned vegetation not yet growing back.
Nate gave a low whistle. “Not a good sign.”
“Not at all,” Thom agreed, shaking his head, brow furrowed. “Think maybe Haranda lied to us about the condition of the ship?”
“Or didn’t know. He was only a cadet after all.” Nate stood in the stirrups, trying to see how far to the west the scar in the plateau extended before twitching the reins to direct his kemat to follow it.
“I don’t understand,” Bithia said as the kemat trotted over the meadow. “Your ship created this wound in the ground?”
Nate grimaced. “Yes.”
“Surely this much destruction means a pretty uncontrolled crash. You expect to find the ship in flyable condition?”
“Not so much anymore,” Nate said, not taking his eyes off the wall of scorched earth.
“I understand your emotions, having felt similarly myself when I walked into the abandoned laboratories at Nochen.”
Half an hour later, they came upon the ship, nose buried in a mound of the rich, soft soil.
“No, no, no,” Thom said, pointing at the blackened stern of the courier vessel. “The ship was in better shape when we landed, I swear. Even though I was kinda busy, I would have seen this much damage, I think.”
“A smoldering fire in the engines maybe?” Nate spurred his reluctant kemat forward.
He rode past the grave Haranda and Thom had been digging when captured. Nate reined in. “At least the enemy respected our dead, however they treated us,” he said with some surprise, gazing at the neatly mounded, undisturbed resting place of Jurgens, their pilot who’d died of an apparent heart attack during or moments prior to the crash landing. “Lords of Space, watch over him. And Haranda.” Nate saluted and rode on.
Thom saluted the grave and followed Nate.
Bithia came silently after them. By the time she rode up to the midsection of the ship, both men had dismounted and were securing their kemat to the branches of a small, uprooted tree. Nate helped her from the saddle for the sheer pleasure of having her in his arms, not because she required his assistance, and then Thom led her mount to graze with the others.
“Now what?” Bithia asked curiously, eyeing the ship as she walked along the side. “This craft bears no resemblance to anything my people flew.”
“We try to get access.” Nate flipped open a small panel near the door and keyed in a sequence on the touch pad. He listened intently, waiting for the ship’s artificial intelligence to respond. Nothing happened. Nate and Thom exchanged grim looks.
“Locked?” Bithia inquired.
“At least Haranda took a few precautions before leaving the ship,” Nate answered, frowning. “Only he and Jurgens had the combination to their own ship. Of course, at any Sectors base, there’d be a number of people with the code who could get access—maintenance crew and the like. As a member of the Special Forces, I have an override code that the ship—any Sectors ship—ought to respond to.”
“Ought to is the operative phrase,” Thom said. “Want me to try the dorsal manual escape hatch?”
“Let me key this in one more time. Ah, there she goes.” Nate pulled Bithia aside as a doorway neatly snicked open right in front of them. A narrow ramp unfolded, the end sinking into the soft earth.
Cautiously, Nate, followed by Thom and Bithia, stepped aboard the vessel. As soon as all three were inside, he retracted the gangway.
As the ship noiselessly sealed itself against intruders, he unclenched his jaw. “Safe for the first time on this damn planet.”
“What a relief.” Thom sagged against the slightly curved, opaquely gleaming corridor wall panel. “First order of business?”
Nate headed toward the bow of the ship. “Talk to the AI, find out what the hell shape she’s in.”
“I remember you saying something about wanting a shot of headclear, oh, about ten thousand times since we was captured,” Thom said. “Want me to go aft and get the medkit?”
Nate stopped and swung around in the narrow passageway. “For the first time since I can remember, I don’t have a headache. But get the kit anyway. We can work on these bruises and cuts Lolanta left me with.” He held out a hand to Bithia. “Come with me?”
“Gladly. It’s fascinating to see you and Thom in your proper element. A little unsettling.”
“How so?” asked Nate as he led her past a series of tightly closed portals.
“I understood you are from a spacefaring race, like mine, but since I’ve only seen you in Nochen, dressed as slaves or sapiche players, or as Sarbordon’s guards”—she chuckled—“I’ve had occasional trouble actually believing your technological prowess.”
“You’ll believe it even more easily when I get my hands on a proper uniform and get cleaned up. Here we are, the flight deck.” Again, Nate provided his override code. This time, the door responded promptly, permitting them access to the control chamber where the main AI interface resided.
The flight deck of a small ship like this one was designed to be efficient in an extremely cramped area. Two seats with consoles were located all the way forward, large viewscreens above and to the sides, and a spare seat, with no console but a smaller viewscreen, was at the rear. Nate motioned Bithia to that one.
“I’ll see what’s to be done here.”
He sank into the black leather pilot’s seat and flexed his fingers a moment before sending them dancing across the console, typing in his code, then his ID, followed by a string of commands.
Bithia chose not to sit as suggested, but to lean over his chair. “You’re a soldier and a pilot? You received a high degree of cross-training.”
“I’m a pilot, mo
re or less. Definitely less, if you ask anyone in the Space Navy. Have to admit I couldn’t pilot anything much bigger than this, or maybe a starfighter, but I’m checked out on the basics for a ship this size. Sometimes we fly ourselves in and out of a mission location, depending on the conditions, what Sector it’s in, what the job is, etcetera. This was kind of a luxury, being flown back to base. Some luxury.” Nate shook his head. “Would have been better to have flown myself. Couldn’t have done a worse job than poor Jurgens and Haranda. I’ve got the AI online now. I’d better concentrate.”
Their technology fascinated Bithia, just as hers had entranced them, so she stayed where she was, but didn’t try to engage Nate in conversation again.
The door slid open behind them, and Thom came in, carrying a small kitbag. Out of the corner of his eye, Nate saw his friend gaze at Bithia in silent enquiry. She shrugged and spread her hands.
“What’s the prognosis?” Thom sank into the chair Bithia had declined.
Nate spun his chair to face them both. No use in delaying the bad news. “We’re not getting out of here.”
“Slagged?” Thom asked.
Nate nodded.
“What is slagged?” Bithia studied his face and then checked Thom’s reaction. “Something bad obviously.”
“We have strict rules about not leaving artifacts, much less a whole ship, intact on a world like Talonque, or when the enemy is present,” Nate said. “The engines of this ship were badly damaged by a blast from a Mawreg client race’s cruiser, which is why we entered hyperspace too close to a blue giant star and ended the journey here, wherever we are, off the Sector charts altogether.” He looked at Thom. “From what the AI tells me, we were fortunate that Jurgens—or Haranda, if he was at the controls—panicked and hit the overdrive too close to the star. Otherwise, we weren’t going anywhere. The engines were dying. We must have barely made it through the atmosphere. I’m not surprised Jurgens had a heart attack. I accessed his personnel jacket while I waited for the AI to finish its eval of the ship conditions. Oddly enough, Jurgens was an inner Sector ferry pilot for high-ranking hotshots his entire career prior to this last posting in the Outer Rim.”
Trapped On Talonque: (A Sectors SF romance) Page 26