Shalia's Diary Book 4

by Tracy St. John

  We all froze. After a moment of shock, Glidas shrilled, “What are you doing loose on my ship?”

  I didn’t have time to contemplate that she had called the vessel hers. The next second she noticed what I wore on my shoulders.

  “Finiuld!”

  Thank heavens Oses’ startled state lasted only a couple of seconds. Glidas hadn’t even finished her shocked scream when the Nobek launched himself at the Tragooms.

  He was smart enough to go for a knife one of our enemies wore on a bandoleer strapped across its thick chest. In an instant blood was spraying, Tragooms were shrieking, and Glidas was yelling the command to set off the collars.

  All three combatants hit the floor, howling in misery. I regained my own presence of mind and shouted, “Oses’ collar, off!”

  An instant later, Oses was back on his feet, snarling. He went for the still writhing Tragooms once again as Glidas stared at me in disbelief. She turned to run.

  I don’t know where the strength came from, but I heaved Finiuld from off my shoulders and hurled him at Glidas. I ran after her without waiting for the bodies to collide. If she got to the collar controls and turned mine back on, we were well and truly fucked.

  I’d hoped Finiuld’s body would hit her about mid-back, but that little bitch was so close to the ground that my aim was understandably off. His limp arms still managed to clip the top of her head as he sailed over her, and she stumbled. I caught her easily.

  Amped up with adrenaline and fear of being re-captured, I grabbed hold of Glidas and smashed her face-first against the floor. At some point I registered I was repeatedly bashing her head against the ground. I don’t know how long I’d been at it, but my arms were beginning to complain from aching fatigue.

  Oses’ voice dragged me from my desperate terror. “Stop, Shalia. Stop. It’s over. Stop.”

  My mind returned from whatever distant place it had gone, taking up residence once more within my skull. I became aware of Oses’ hands on my shoulders. I looked down at the Ofetuchan, whose head I clutched between my hands. When I saw what I’d done, I puked. To judge from the flesh, bone, and greenish-red fluids on the floor, I’d done considerable damage, possibly erasing Glidas’ face.

  Once my stomach was back under control, I filed away the horror of the bodies lying in the corridor and the fact that one of them was dead because of my violence. I had to push all that aside for the moment or my sanity would have left again. It might not have come back had I not made myself blind and dumb to what I’d done.

  I let Oses help me to my feet. He used his skirt to gently wipe my mouth off. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I looked into his face. He had flecks of blood dotting his cheeks. Carnage, carnage, everywhere. I was so tired of blood and guts.

  I had this funny distant feeling in my head. It was sort of like the disconnect I’d experienced when I’d allowed Oses to torture the Earther man Finiuld had captured. I was still in danger of taking a major mental vacation. I had to get out of that corridor, where the Tragooms stank of blood and shit and a recently living being’s brains were splattered on the floor beneath me.

  “Let’s get to Finiuld’s quarters,” I said. “I need to keep moving.”

  Oses nodded. He didn’t say anything, probably because he knew there was nothing he could say that would make things right in my head.

  Of course, going to the Little Creep’s room meant carting that body around on my shoulders again. At least he wasn’t leaking anywhere. I made that count for something as I hefted the unwelcome weight once more. For some reason, Oses took Glidas’ phase control off her body and kept that. I didn’t know why since it would be useless to him, but I didn’t question him about it either. It was too much effort.

  I managed to get us to our destination without any problem, probably because I was concentrating so hard on my task. Minutiae at that point was my saving grace. It kept me from thinking of the things I’d seen and done. Placing one foot in front of the other, searching for that particular portrait in the corridor, and deciding exactly at what point we should pass through the wall were wonderful distractions from the horror of what had gone before. With Oses’ hand on the small of my back, we stepped into Finiuld’s quarters.

  I thought I should have felt pride in us making it. At the very least, I should have been cheering in celebration. All I felt was tired, however. Tired and used up.

  I let go of Finiuld’s body and let it drop to the floor. The softness of that surface emitted only a soft thud when he hit. I swear, I could still feel his weight on me though. I even checked to make sure I’d really unloaded him. He stared up at me, his head facing the wrong damned way, like some grotesque broken doll. I thought I would puke again, but I was too exhausted for even that.

  “Where is the control panel, Shalia?” Oses gently prodded me. “Show me so we can turn the collars off.”

  His voice was like a beacon through the fog that kept encroaching on my mind. I pointed at the silvery desk-looking thing. “There. Access control panel.”

  Once again, the lights, levers, and buttons appeared on the surface of the computer. Oses’ eyes widened in appreciation.

  “You just tell it what you want and it obeys?” he asked. “I’m surprised there aren’t better safeguards than that.”

  I shrugged. I was in no shape to think long and hard about how Ofetuchans’ minds worked. “Finiuld probably thought it was perfectly safe in his private room. I guess he was sure I hadn’t figured it out since he never switched my collar back on.”

  “What of the female?” Oses wondered out loud. He didn’t seem to be questioning me. “She said this was her ship. Why didn’t she have the controls in her quarters? Was Finiuld in charge of them on her behalf?”

  Even though the Nobek only seemed to be musing out loud, I had an answer for him. “If these are only for the collars, I doubt she needed controls. It seemed we belonged more to Finiuld than her. Except for those Tragooms she had guarding her, Glidas had nothing to do with the collection, not to my knowledge.”

  “It’s a mystery,” Oses murmured. “But one that can be solved later. How did you turn off your collar?”

  “Turn off the collar of Kalquorian Nobek Oses,” I said. “There. That should do it.”

  “It didn’t do anything,” Oses said, glaring at the computer as if it was his most hated enemy. “No acknowledgement. No change in these lights.”

  “I know. But you can touch Finiuld now and it won’t hurt you. Nor will my command, since he gave me that ability to control you. Collar, punish Oses.”

  Though I’d uttered the command that should have sent my Nobek friend into shrieking agony, he remained standing there, unaffected. A grin slowly spread across his face.

  “Wonderful,” he breathed. Just to be sure, Oses went to Finiuld’s crumpled form and poked at it. He remained pain-free. His sigh of relief filled the room.

  “Should we turn off all the rest?” I asked. “Except the Tragooms, of course.”

  Oses took Finiuld’s phase controller off his belt and came back to stand before the controls. “De-activate all collar controls except those of the Tragooms,” he ordered. “Place all control over Tragooms’ collars with Kalquorian Nobek Oses and Earther Shalia Monroe.”

  As usual, the system didn’t do anything that we could see that confirmed Oses’ dictates had been received.

  “And now for this,” Oses said, holding up the phase gizmo he’d gotten off Finiuld. “Transfer control of Ofetuchan Finiuld’s phase converter to Kalquorian Nobek Oses.”

  I blinked. That would be damned handy if it worked, though I’d already decided Oses would be lugging the Little Creep around from now on.

  Oses suddenly disappeared. I jumped about a mile in sudden panic before I recovered myself. “It worked! I can’t see you anymore.”

  Oses re-appeared. “Excellent. Let’s see if the other one will do the same. Transfer control of Ofetuchan Glidas’ phase converter to Earther Shalia Monroe.”
>
  He handed me the gadget he’d taken off the woman. I thought at it to make me phase.

  “Are you trying to phase?” Oses asked.

  “Yeah. Apparently it’s not working.” I scowled at the gizmo.

  “She must have had her own control panel in her quarters. That’s fine; we’ll make do with the one until we locate the controls for hers.”

  The little shock I’d gotten when Oses phased had chased away most of the detached feeling in my head. It lurked at the edges, promising to sweep in if I experienced too many more shocks, but I was starting to feel like myself once more.

  “What’s next?” I asked Oses.

  “Now we take control over this ship. We need to find its bridge or command center.”

  “I wonder how many Tragoom guards we’ll run across?” I worried.

  Oses showed me the knives he’d taken from the two he’d already taken care of. “Don’t worry. If for some reason their collars don’t respond to our orders, I will handle it.”

  Oses had the sense to ask Finiuld’s computer for directions to the ship’s control center. When that failed to give us any answers, he asked for the vessel’s schematics. Still nothing. So we were stuck doing it the hard way. We set off to find the way to the ship’s bridge. I quickly lost my bearings, but Oses seemed to know what he was doing. It didn’t take me long to figure out he was systematically searching and committing the layout to memory. I envied him that ability. Most days I’m happy if I can remember what I ate for breakfast.

  As I’d feared, we encountered Tragooms. Fortunately our commands set off their collars, leaving them writhing, shitting, and squalling all over the floor. We weren’t complete ass-hats about the situation; after a few seconds we countermanded the pain orders. Nor did Oses go out of his way to kill any of them. We gave them a chance to run away and leave us alone. Every last one of them did. After half a dozen such encounters, any Tragooms we chanced upon didn’t wait around. They got the hell out of our sight in a hurry. Word was spreading.

  I don’t know if Oses was nearing the end of his rope or simply giddy from our success in breaking free. However, he seemed as thrilled with seeing Tragooms run from him as he did killing them. He even snickered from time to time. At least someone was enjoying our bid for escape. I was too stressed over the whole thing to take any enjoyment out of it.

  It seemed like every wall we passed through brought us to a place where Tragooms were. As a couple more lumbered through the wall across what appeared to be a storage bay, rushing to get away, I noted, “We should go in another direction. Those things have phase converters and are everywhere in this part of the ship.”

  “Which leads me to believe we are getting closer to the bridge,” Oses said, heading straight for where the Tragooms had exited. “It seems the Ofetuchans do the same thing with their Tragoom slaves that the Bi’isils do. They use them for security.”

  It turned out he was right. The next room we entered had no Tragooms, but there were two collared Dantovonians and three Adrafs waiting for us. The instant we entered, they fell to the floor, as if to worship us.

  One Adraf spoke, his speech insanely garbled. Oses must be a linguist of the highest order to have understood him because he told me, “They beg us to spare them. They are slaves who run the ship for Glidas. They fear she will kill them if they do not attempt to stop us, but the Tragooms have told them we command the collars. They don’t know what to do.”

  Oses didn’t wait for me to reply. He barked out something in his own language instead. I guess he doesn’t speak Adraf. I don’t blame him. I doubt mouths like ours could form such noises.

  Fortunately, they understood him as well as he did them. The group got to their feet, chattering and buzzing away all at once. Hope lit their alien faces. One Dantovonian’s segmented face even stretched in a smile. It wasn’t pretty, but it lifted my heart a touch just the same.

  Oses grinned at me. “They’ll take us to the control center of the ship. One of them is a navigator. He says a Kalquorian destroyer is not far away, perhaps only two days’ journey behind us. It may be one of our transport’s escorts because it’s been close since we left Xniktix.”

  My heart leapt to hear that. At the same time, I felt suspicion. Were we really going to be rescued? I kept thinking it had to be some kind of a trap.

  Yet there was no subterfuge that I could detect on our new friends’ faces. Their cautious hope was turning into real joy as they showed us the way to the ship’s bridge.

  Word apparently spread fast, because there were cheers sounding through the walls before we stepped onto the bridge. The bedlam that greeted us when we did get to the vessel’s control center was something else.

  An Isetacian was literally climbing the walls, his six legs adhering to the shining surfaces like a fly. A couple more Dantovonians hopped on their froggy-like hind legs. Four brightly-furred Joshadans ran right up to Oses, jabbering happily and patting his muscled legs. He wasted no time in bowing deeply to the sapphire, emerald, citrine, and ruby fluffs of fur.

  I had no more than conversational Kalquorian under my belt and damned little of that. I could only stand by while Oses spoke to the collared bridge crew. After a few minutes of what must have been him telling them all of how we were now free (they kept interrupting him to shout, cheer, and bounce about), he got them to do more helpful functions. Everyone suddenly hurried to stations that looked much like Finiuld’s desk-controller without the phasing. Oses continued to talk as they worked feverishly. Occasionally he was answered by someone.

  After a couple minutes of this, the Nobek turned to me in triumph. “There is a destroyer nearby, and its identification marks belong to one of our transport’s escorts. I’m having the crew de-activate the ship’s phasing so that we can be detected. Then we’ll com a message. We’re changing our heading to meet them.”

  “How far away is it?” I asked.

  “If the destroyer matches us at top speed, we’ll meet up tomorrow.” Oses grabbed me in an impetuous hug. “We’re almost out of this, Shalia. Everything is going to be all right.”

  “There are no other Ofetuchan ships?” I asked, killjoy that I am.

  “According to this crew, no. The vessel was scheduled to meet up with others for a party in three days.” Oses’ grin lit up his dark face. “We will not be attending.”

  “Thank God,” I breathed.

  One of the Joshadans spoke up. Oses answered. Then, joy of joys, a deep voice came over the com, speaking in the staccato Kalquorian language I recognized. The captive crew cheered wildly once more.

  Oses and this other Kalquorian conversed for some time once things settled down again. It was only then that I finally began to relax. We were going home to our transport. Our time in purgatory was nearly at an end.

  Oses wrapped up his conversation. “They are coming as quickly as possible,” he told me. “Captain Zemos is nearly beside himself with excitement that we have captured an Ofetuchan ship. Studying the technology of a race that was more legend than reality is going to make our scientists extremely happy.”

  “I’m delighted we have been of service,” I commented drily. “I’m so glad I signed on for this.”

  Oses laughed, but there was a note of pain to match my own. “Yes, you’ll have to demand hazard pay from the fleet. Mother of All, we all deserve to be rich after what we’ve been through.”

  “Fuck rich,” I said. “Let’s just get back to the transport.”

  “Yes, my Matara.”

  Oses froze and his mostly happy expression dropped away. He stared at me. “I’m going to have to stop calling you that now that we’re about to be rescued.”

  His expression turned sad for an instant. As relieved as I was for our hell to end, I too experienced a pang of loss. Our temporary clanship was at an end. I no longer belonged to Oses.

  Since I was too wrung out to offer meaningless consolation, I went for distraction instead. “We should release the others from their containments.”


  Oses straightened. “Yes, we should. It’s too bad the phase device is tuned to me and not you. I hate to leave the bridge.”

  “Can’t you keep in communication with the crew while we’re setting everyone free?”

  “I can. Still—” His brow creased with concern as he looked at the happy denizens flying the ship towards the destroyer.

  “You don’t want to leave anything to chance when we’re so close to rescue,” I finished for him.

  He nodded. “I keep feeling like things are going to go wrong any second now.”

  I glanced around at the bridge crew, all of whom jabbered, hugged each other, and glowed with huge smiles on their faces even as tears streaked down. “I think this gang is as determined to be set free as we are. At the very least, the Joshadans are supposed to be trustworthy. But there should be something set up so the Tragooms can’t access the bridge.”

  Oses spoke to the crew. The ruby-furred Joshadan answered him, waving his tiny hands in glad dismissal. Oses turned to me.

  “Glidas and Finiuld never gave any of the Tragooms access to the bridge. The bastards are too opportunistic to be trusted around the ship’s controls, even with the collars on. They can’t get in here to change our course or take over.”

  I linked my arm in his. “Then shall we set the others free?”

  Oses nodded, though his reluctance was still obvious. “Yes, I suppose we should.”

  I too was hesitant about leaving the bridge. I was pretty sure of the crew. They had confirmed Glidas and Finiuld were the only two Ofetuchans on board. Yet I felt the same superstitious concerns as Oses ... that the instant we turned our backs, it would all go to shit. Still, I couldn’t stand the thought of the others sitting in their cages, waiting to hear if they had finally been released. Had I been in their place, every second would have been a lifetime. It was too cruel to leave them there.

  I guess Oses felt the same way, because he relented. We made the trek back to that horrid room where we’d been kept caged. Our fellow prisoners went wild with joy when we told them Finiuld and Glidas were dead and a Kalquorian destroyer was on its way. The Plasian wept, as she had done almost continuously since I’d first laid eyes on her. When Oses led her out of her habitat, she simply stood with her bronze-furred head bowed, crying and crying. She didn’t speak. Heaven only knows if her mind will recover from whatever horrors she’d borne.