Alien Lords' Captive (Celestial Mates Book 6)
Page 2
“Got it!” Scott shouted. The lights were dim and failed to light all more than the front of the Orb.
“That’s all we get?” Marx demanded.
“Until I get to fuck about with the main electrical, that is what I can give you. Now help me get Whiz out from under this panel.”
Marx unfastened his harness and stumbled over to Scott and the half-buried Damien. “Why is there gravity?”
“Because there is still one shell spinning opposite of the cabin orb,” Damien hissed.
“Meaning?”
“Artificial gravity, such that it is,” Scott snapped. They bent and managed to heft the panel off the youngest member of the crew.
“Let’s find the ladies.” Marx commented after hefting Damien into the Captain’s seat next to Lu-Ne.
They found Juno unconscious, but otherwise hale and hold tucked under her medical console and blockaded by another fallen panel. Marx and Scott searched the chamber, but they kept stumbling over fallen equipment and storage. They couldn’t find Matrise.
“Fuck!” Marx snarled after hitting his shins, yet again on hard metal edge. “Get the lights up Scott. We can’t see anything and we need to be able to see to find Matrise.”
Scott stumbled over to the electrical access, cussing and snarling as he abused his own shins along the way. The panel the access was tucked in half hung free. Scott gestured at Marc. Together, they managed to tug it aside. Scott tinkered with the fuses and after rerouting a couple of circuits, dim light washed over the decimated interior of the Orb.
He turned toward Marx and found the other man gaping in mute horror at whatever had caught his eye behind the panel. Scott turned back toward the electrical and a matted shock of honey blonde hair caught his attention.
“Matrise…” he murmured. He reached out toward the electrically singed fingertips of the woman he had worked closely with for the last couple of years. Marx grabbed Scott’s arm and pulled him back, away from Matrise’s body.
“We have to help!” Scott began on a bellow.
“Look. Look at her eyes! There is nothing that we can do for her Scott.” Marx turned the other man toward him away from the burned body of their crewmate. Her face had been blessedly spared the electrocution that had streaked erratically across her hands – blackening them.
*
“You get me in contact with the Orb Crew,” James Hudson roared at the techs as they scrambled to regain communications. The men and women aboard the Regency were doing the same. He turned toward an intern that had plastered himself against the wall.
“You!”
“M-me?” the intern stammered.
“Yes, you. Go – go to medical and get me Doctor Howitzly. I want him here now. Now! And with pants,” James hollered as the intern scrambled out the door.
*
When the boy – he can’t be older than nineteen or twenty – Howitzly knew that he was being summoned to the Command Center. That assumption was reaffirmed when the young intern offered him a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt.
“S-sir. Mr. Hudson is requesting you.”
“Yes, I imagine he is…”
*
“What the hell happened Doc.?” The normally unshakable James demanded as soon as he walked back into the Command Center with the awkward intern.
“What did I tell you?” Howitzly began, “the Splicer, splices. There was secondary energy on that ship. The same energy cannot exist in two places.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They are living breathing things. The theory is that the soul in energy. That energy cannot exist in two places concurrently,” Howitzly explained patiently.
“You’re telling me that the souls of those six men and women caused the Space Splicer to destroy the Orb.” James demanded in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“That is the biggest bunch of bullshit I have ever heard,” One of the Global Militarized Forces Commanders bitched as he came down the stairs into the Command Center.
“I assure you it is not.” Howitzly insisted. “The Splicer was never meant for space travel. The technology has the potential to further space travel – but it has to be modified from the Splicer.”
“Sir…” James began as he attempted to bodily guide the Commander back toward the stairs to the observation deck.
“No!” The man planted his feet and glared with intense antagonism at Howitzly. “You get my Captains up on that screen and you do it now.”
James prepared to turn and rage at the techs when one jumped up, “Sir – Hudson. I’ve got them. I’ve got the Orb Crew.”
“Put it up on the main view!”
*
Marx leaned over Damien’s shoulder as the communication’s display swam. Suddenly a room full of people looked into his and the Whiz’s face from the Earth’s surface.
“Captain!” James crowed. He sounded as if he was I a bucket.
“The speakers have been damaged.” Damien muttered.
“We’ll make do,” Marx reassured the young man.
“Captain,” James said again. “Is every one alright – Regency is presently on your tail. They are working on lining up to catch y’all in the docking station.”
“We are glad to hear that. We need some medical assistance as Doctor Halūk is concussed and out. LePatley and I are a little shaken up. Appelby appears to have some broken ribs – at the least – he was pinned beneath one of the wall panels. Pax has shrapnel impalement – we have left it where it is to control bleeding.”
“Matrise! Where is Matrise?” Doctor Howitzly demanded from behind James.
I guess with what happened, they decided he wasn’t impaired. “I am sorry Doctor Howitzly, Matrise Bordeux is the only casualty. We found her body when we managed to get the lights up…It appears as is she was electrocuted…or something.”
Marx watched as one of the techs quickly surrendered her chair to Howitzly and the old Doctor collapsed into it. James opened his mouth to speak and simply closed it when there were no words.
The coms were silent for several minutes until, finally, the Captain of the Regency spoke.
“We are in position, Orb. Regency is deploying the docking cup.” The orb jerked and suddenly the tenuous gravity disappeared as the shell stopped spinning. “We’ve got you Orb. Regency is loaded. We are coming home Command.”
The display swam again. When it went black, Marx heard the Whiz sniffle before the young genius finally gave in to his tears at the loss of a friend.
Chapter 2
They sat there – waiting. Howitzly had been the last person called into the hearing room to report to the McCallaghan Aerospace Institute’s Oversight Committee.
The Regency had managed to get the Orb – what was left of it – back to Earth. Aside from Matrise the entire crew sat on the long bench awaiting the final review interview, at which everyone would be in attendance.
Damien – the Whiz as Marx thought of him – sat between Dr. Juno and LePatley. Scott LePatley was leaning back, his head resting against the wall behind him.
Marx knew that the man was filled with regrets. Regret that he hadn’t appreciated the woman – the friend – that they had all lost as fully as he could have. Juno and Lu-Ne leaned on each other. The women had all been close; they hadn’t just lost a friend. Matrise’s death meant that they had lost one of their triangles of female strength, a confidant.
Marx sat on Lu-Ne’s other side, closest to the door. He understood that the tragedy wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was a sad consequence of an accident.
The Oversight Committee had been assembled and assigned by the Global Governance in order to assess blame and with the board of the McCallaghan Aerospace Institute were tasked with determining the correct course of action in the wake of the tragedy.
That was the most frustrating thing to the Crew, to Howitzly, to James Hudson…there was no one to truly blame. There had been talk of trying to blame Matrise for the accident.
Yeah, wouldn’t that be convenient, Marx thought bitterly.
Before he could continue to wallow, the doors of the hearing room opened. One of the officials stood there, framed in the dim light that escaped the doorway around him announced into the hallway, “If everyone would please come in and find a seat. We have reached a conclusion.”
“Howitzly never came out…” Juno murmured in her soft toned voice.
“That is because they had a decision before he ever went in there” James snipped under his breath.
No one else commented – there was nothing else to say – as all the experts, techs, and crews of both the Regency and the Orb trudged into the hearing room.
Chairs scraped on the tiles, but in a few short minutes the room was under an oppressive weight of judgmental silence.
The same official stood in front of the Oversight Committee’s and MCAI Board’s table. When he was sure of everyone’s attention he addressed the room.
“After extensive investigation, interviews, and evaluation, the Committee has determined that the Deep Space Transport TOB via Space Splicer program’s catastrophe was a tragic accident.” A low buzz filled the room as people murmured their relief.
“However,” and silence fell again at the official’s continuation. “This Committee was tasked with MCAI’s Board of Directors to make a decision in the wake of this unfortunate incident.”
The Committee official turned toward a man sitting at the table behind him, the Chairman of MCAI’s Board of Directors, and nodded.
The Chairman stood but did not bother to circumnavigate the table to stand before it with the Committee Official. Instead, he spoke in his stage actor’s baritone, his voice pitched to reach every person in the room with crystal clarity.
“The decision that has been made is that the Deep Space Transport TOB via S.Splicer program will be cancelled. The risks are no longer justified. That said, those that were exclusively assigned to this program will be reassigned to another project or if it is more appropriate, will be offered a golden parachute and substantial benefits package.”
The buzz of voices rekindled, but was immediately quashed by the Chairman’s baritone.
“This concludes the final review – Now, I would appreciate it if everyone would attend the service for Doctor Matrise Bordeux this afternoon. It will be held at the Hapley Memorium. Thank you.”
*
Damien hated places like the Memorium – they were always too dark and the air filled with the scent of too many flowers. Still, he would never disrespect Matrise and decline to attend.
The entire crew was filled with regret. There wasn’t a single person among the five of them that didn’t lament words that had gone unsaid, hugs that were forever trapped in the arms of those that should have given them, and for Damien himself a confession that would be trapped on his tongue forever.
He walked in with the others, they were some of the first to arrive, and from the door you couldn’t avoid the glass coffin front and center. The Memorium had managed to hide the burns, so Matrise merely looked to be sleeping.
People from MCAI filed into the service hall they filled the room, mingled and reminisced about the woman whose shell was on display in the clear box.
When the service and reception finally concluded, the Orb Crew was among the few that ventured out to the cemetery attached to the Memorium. Matrise’s family members were traditionalists and believed in burying their dead.
Everyone had been surprised that the Bordeux’s had elected to bury their daughter in the local earth, but when Damien had asked why at the reception. Matrise’s mother had offered him a watery smile through her tears and told him “it is only right to leave her close to where she dreamed of being.”
When the reinforced glass case was lowered, dirt piled upon it, and velvety roses laid in homage, the Orb Crew clustered together against the suddenly mist filled wind and made their way back to the car they had ridden in together.
As they pulled out of the parking facilities, Damien noticed a man in the grass-covered cemetery standing alone over the fresh knoll. The man’s heavy coat and low sitting had made him impossible to identify, but Damien suspected that the man was the other man that had been as gravely affected by Matrise’s death as Damien had been himself.
*
He stroked his fingers over the soft dewy petals of the apricot-hued rose that Matrise had once admitted was her favorite color on that particular thorned beauty.
After she had made that admission, Joseph Howitzly forever associated a thorn clad orange and cream rose with one of the most brilliant students he had ever mentored.
Howitzly laid the flower on the dark dirt of the fresh grave mound. For the first time since the accident, he let his expression slip. A smile curved his lips as he bent to whisper to the woman he admired. After he straightened – Howitzly forced sorrow back onto his face as he trudged through the increasingly damn and gray cemetery.
His words still clung to the air over the grave – they spoke of a knowledge that he had hidden during the investigations.
“Good luck on your adventure Matrise – may you find delight in your destination. I hope that Habögad 4 is everything that we have hoped it to be.”
*
Rodnekow'E nee Habögad 4
They pushed through the brush, the malhūt was just ahead. The Kings’ chief food preparer had insisted on a large malhūt for that evening’s meal – a little pre-celebratory feast for the rulers. The following day would mark the Eon of Power’s Poyat. It would be the final day of the Kings’ 600th cycle of rule.
The two hunters raced through the forest, shouldering aside the large leaves of the low-lying foliage. The one who had taken lead suddenly fell, his follower and twin vaulted over the hidden obstacle and his brother. He hit the damp, leaf strewn ground hard, but rolled to his feet. The red blaze of the sky was soon to darken; they couldn’t afford to lose the malhūt they had managed to track.
The beast’s soft scaled spinal ridge flashed like flint through the green leafs. He let loose the barbed projectile from its sling. The barbs found home deep in succulent flesh. He sighed in relief as the malhūt fell. It’s heavy body crashing against the mist slicked leaves.
His twin shouted from near where he had fallen, “Mahal? Did you get it?”
“Yes, we are done here. If you can get off the ground perhaps you can help me haul the malhūt back.”
“I’m getting up Eikal.” Mahal hollered back before Eikal heard him grumble, “ What in the name of the red sky did I fall over?”
“Who cares?” Eikal sighed as he tilted his head side to side, stretching the tightly bunched cords of muscle on the sides of his neck.
“Eikal! Eikal! Come here. Come over here!”
Concerned, Eikal trotted back through the undergrowth toward his twin’s voice. “What Mahal?” He demanded as soon as he could see his sibling kneeling over a tangle of vines and leaves. “Seriously? It is a Bishept’s nest. Get up – we need to get back to the fortress.”
As Eikal began to turn away, his brother grabbed him by the wrist and yanked hard. He crashed to the ground beside his twin and had his face forcibly turned to look at what was beneath the tangle of vines. When he realized what he was looking at Eikal scrambled to his knees and turned to look into shocked eyes the same color and shape as his own.
“That is no R'kowe woman…” Mahal began.
“No…you dig the woman out. I will get the malhūt.” Eikal decided.
“We are going to take the woman? There?”
“If we don’t and are found out – think how bad it will become.”
“You are right,” Mahal agreed and he pulled the long blade from its holder on his thigh and began working on the think, tangled vines and Eikal hiked back to
collect their hunted prey.
When he returned, the malhūt in tow behind him, wrapped and tethered in the coarsely woven, amber-wax slicked cloth they brought to help transport the animal, Eikal watched as Mahal cut through the list thick vine and tossed the entire bundle aside.
The twins stared down at a female no one would mistake for being born to their world. Her body was bare, her skin was pale, the color of fresh Ro-rock milk after a heavy rain. Her tangled hair looked like a sweep of glossy butter. Unlike R'kowe females who were lithe and straight, but this one’s body was shaped like a series curves.
Her body tapered and blossomed even though she still bore the markers of strength. Beneath her pale skin the twin hunters could see that she carried trained muscles.
“So, you have another amber-wax slick?” Eikal inquired.
“I do…Did you see the upper limbs?” Mahal rummaged in his pack for the folded cloth.
Eikal grunted in reply. It was impossible to miss the female’s hands and arms – they were heavily marked. The erratic trails of pure white appeared to glow on her pale skin. And the markings were strikingly reminiscent of the sky sparks that split the dark haze and lit the night sky to radiate like flowing blood through the clouds of a storm.
Chapter 3
It’s warm – too warm. Sure, whatever she was wrapped in was soft and sensuous on her skin, but it was too hot. Annoyed, Matrise opened her eyes. For a moment everything was bright. There were vague shapes and shadows, no definition until her eyes slowly adapted to the bright light of the room. When, at last, her vision cleared, Matrise was left suspended in a terrifyingly befuddled moment.
Either my eyes are bleeding or everything else is…that is the only reason for this much red in a room.
In reality, neither was the case. It took Matrise’s brain another minute to finally catch up with the clarity her eyes were experiencing. When it did, she realized that the red-dominated décor was enhanced by red curtains banking the bright light of the day into a red glow.