Tor (Women of Earth Book 2)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "No. No. Leave me alone. I have to get Mohawk!"

  "Damn it, woman, there's no time."

  Wynne tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. He was tall and his shoulders were twice the breadth of hers. He was running at full speed and she knew he wouldn't stop if she lost her footing. She had no choice but to run with him or be dragged along the floor.

  They were past the hallway where part of the wall collapsed when he suddenly stopped before a square metal door in the wall. It was marked with red lettering in a language Wynne couldn't read. He yanked the handle at the top and hinged at the bottom, the door dropped down. Metal sides prevented it from fully opening. He yanked again and the door fell with a bang against the wall below. He stripped off the leather bag that hung from a wide strap across his chest and tossed it in, then turned to Wynne.

  "Get in."

  Wynne eyed the opening. The red emergency lights pulsed, exposing a few feet of metal chute and then nothing but blackness.

  "What is...?"

  "Attention. Attention, please..."

  "No time."

  "No! I can't... Wait!"

  Protest ignored, she was lifted and shoved feet first into the chute and then she was sliding down and down, faster and faster into darkness. Her screams echoed off the metal walls. Her hands were above her head, the hem of her skirt above her nose. Every few yards, she hit a bump that jarred and tore at her back. In between, the friction burned her thighs like the slide at the park on hot summer days when she was little. Only this slide didn't end. It went on and on until she thought it wasn't going to stop until, suddenly, it did.

  Her feet hit something solid, but soft. The speed of her descent and the sudden stop sent her knees up to her chest so fast one hit her chin. Her teeth clamped together and she bit her tongue. With the pain of the bite, she stopped screaming.

  "Thank Hadrid," Wynne heard him mutter somewhere above her. The utterance echoed eerily in the confined space.

  "Oh, God, don't hit me. Don't hit me," she cried. If he was travelling at half her speed, he'd crush her bones. "I'm stuck!"

  She heard a lot of scraping and cursing and then, "Curl up. Lift your shoulders."

  Wynne wrapped her arms around her raised thighs, curled forward, and squinched her eyes shut in anticipation of the impact. Booted feet slid along her sides, so close they took her raised skirt with them. Strong hands lifted her back as the vee of his spread legs slid under her. He came to a stop beneath her. His arm wrapped around her, beneath her breasts, and he hoisted her up until her back rested on his stomach, her head on his upper chest.

  "Curl your legs up," he ordered and she immediately obeyed, perhaps a bit too quickly since he swore with what sounded like pain.

  "Sorry," she whispered in Godan.

  "Not half as sorry as I am," he grunted. "I'm going to kick. You're going to keep your body still and your legs out of the way."

  He kicked out, awkwardly, banging his knees against the side of the chute, then inched downward and kicked again. The blockage moved, but didn't release its hold on the sides of the confining tube. He kicked again and they were sliding, slowly at first because he had to keep kicking, but at last the obstruction broke free and they picked up speed. His free arm that he'd used for leverage against the sides joined the one wrapped tightly around her.

  In her raised position, Wynne's nose was only inches from the top of the tube, which she now realized was a very low tech laundry chute. She pressed her head back into his chest, folded her arms over his, and for the rest of their short ride, rode his body like a sled.

  They shot from the chute and landed in a pile of bed sheets. He was up and searching through the pile of linen before Wynne had time to catch her breath. He found the strap of his bag, gripped it with one hand and her arm with the other, and then they were running again. Machines whirred softly and buzzers buzzed, their music punctuated by the soft thud-thud of the neatly folded packages of linens that fell from the mouth of a whirring machine. Their footsteps echoed in the empty space. There were no flashing red lights or blaring horns, but the flickering overhead lights and the abandoned work stations told them the story. The danger was spreading. The workers had fled.

  "Attention. Attention, plea..." The computer's voice died along with the lights.

  Her abductor/savior crashed through a set of doors, ran down a passageway barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. At the end, was another door. While she couldn't read the lettering on it any better than the last one, a good guess would say it meant 'Authorized Personnel Only'. There was a small box attached to the wall next to it with an outline of a six fingered hand on the blue screen.

  Her abductor reached into the bag, pulled something from it, and slammed it against the screen. It wasn't until he began to spread the black tipped shapes into position that Wynne realized what it was. Bile rose and she gagged at the sight of the greenish thing he held.

  Hand covering her mouth, she backed away, pointing in horror. "That's a...a..."

  "He didn't need it anymore. We do," he said of the severed hand.

  The screen went dark, something hissed like the sound of steam being released. He stuffed the hand back into the bag and pulled the door open.

  By the effort it took, the door was either heavy or its hinges were stiff. Beyond the door was a metal platform from which a narrow staircase was suspended and supported by narrow cables. Another rumble, like distant thunder, sounded overhead. The ship shuddered and groaned. The staircase swayed. It didn't help her confidence any when he ripped a loose bar from the railing and tossed it behind them.

  "We need to move," he said as the door creaked closed, and when Wynne didn't, he grabbed her hand and tugged. "Worry about the hand later."

  There were lights down below, but none on the stairs. The bar he'd tossed kept the door open a crack, but not enough to fully illuminate their descent. Wynne thought of the rickety fire escapes she'd used in the past.

  She took a deep breath and muttered with a self-encouraging nod, "I can do this."

  "Good. Prove it."

  Every time the ship shuddered, she stopped, and every time she stopped, her companion pushed her shoulder.

  "No time. Keep going."

  Frustration overcame caution. "It would help if I knew where we were going," she huffed.

  "Nowhere if we don't keep moving."

  "That doesn't help," she complained, although she kept moving, her feet finally becoming used to the rhythm of the spacing and curve of the stairs.

  Darkness faded as the light from below reached the stairs. Knowing what was ahead made them easier to navigate and Wynne ran down the last flight to a cavernous chamber. Cargo and equipment lined the walls.

  "This way." He grabbed several tools from a neatly laid out row on a table they passed on their way to yet another door with an entry pad. Again, he used the severed hand, but this time cast it aside. He prevented this door from closing by wedging one of the tools at the hinge.

  The room was empty except for a complicated looking control panel off to one side and six long boxes with pointed front ends lying end to end on a conveyer. The silvery lids were open and the shiny black bases were filled with a bed that reminded Wynne of the reclining chairs back home until she put the shape of the box together with the satiny fabric inside. They were coffins.

  Her companion went directly to the control panel. He pushed buttons, tapped squares, and typed on a key pad. Lights flashed in different colors. He took a marker and scribbled something on the board above the panel and then traded the marker for another. He held that one in his fist while he waited until all the lights turned white. He then turned back to Wynne and pointing to the first sleek black box.

  "In you go."

  Horrified, Wynne started to back away. "Wait. No. Those are coffins. I'm not getting in..."

  "Sorry, sweetheart, no time," he said and reached for her.

  She started to run, but he caught her about the waist before sh
e'd taken two steps. Sharp pain bolted through her shoulder as he jammed the marker into her arm. Her body lost the ability to fight and it was only the changing angle from which she viewed the room that told her she was being lifted and carried. Then the view faded to black.

  Chapter 3

  Wynne closed her eyes against the blackness that surrounded her glass-lidded casket. She refused to cry. She only had one hanky and she would need three or four if she let herself go. It was one of her grandmother's number one rules. Never, ever cry unless you came prepared to mop up the mess. Nona Donazetto's pocketbook was always stuffed with tissues.

  Wynne wasn't prepared for any of this; not war, not aliens, not spaceships, nor any of the other changes that had overtaken their lives in the last seven years. Mira was the strong one, the clever one, the adventurous one. Wynne only had to follow where her sister led.

  "Come on. You'll enjoy it," Wynne mimicked her sister pre-flight pep talk. Her voice sounded hollow in the enclosed space. "Their ships are much safer than our planes. Don't be such a baby. I promise you'll be fine. Really, Wynne, there's nothing to it and you'll sleep through most of it."

  "Liar," she said to her absent sister.

  "Go. You'll have a good time. Mason and I will watch out for the children. It's only for a few weeks and once you're on Mishra you'll be able to chat with them regularly." Ahnyis, the Katarin physician, made it sound simple, too, and even the kids encouraged her to go.

  "It's not like you're leaving forever and you'll have Mohawk with you." In their minds, Mohawk's presence was the ultimate assurance of safety. Only Matias had made her promise to return.

  She'd made him that promise and now realized how empty it might be. Those kids had lost everything and everyone to the Hahnshin invasion. Now they might lose her and Mohawk, too.

  It was too much to bear. She thought she'd made her peace with God long ago, and when He finally called her home, she'd go willingly, grateful for the extra time she'd been allotted. Now that she might really be facing that call, her whole being rebelled. She didn't want to die!

  Heartbreak tearing at her chest and unable to face the reality of her situation without panic, Wynne resorted to the strategy of her childhood. When faced with situations she wasn't equipped to handle, she retreated into a fanciful world of daydreams where everything turned out fine.

  She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was Snow White awaiting Prince Charming's kiss to awaken her and rescue her from this nightmare, but the daydream wouldn't work. Prince Charming took on the face of her abductor. Hard as she tried, she couldn't erase the face from her mind. It was the last thing she saw before he stabbed her with that injection thingy and stuffed her in the coffin.

  "Prince Charming my ass," she muttered. "Prince Charming doesn't knock you out and leave you frightened and alone."

  She tried again, cutting the handsome prince from the story. It still wouldn't work.

  Snow White was earthbound. She had seven singing dwarves to make sure nothing smashed the glass lid of her casket. She wasn't hurtling through space at a gazillion miles per hour, bombarded by tiny pieces of god-only-knew-what that whacked like bullets against the glass.

  Snow White didn't have Mohawk to explain what would happen if the glass that wasn't really glass but some alien polymer material, broke. Mohawk was twenty times better than all those silly cartoon characters. More Tolkien dwarf than Disney, he was strong and brave and fiercely loyal to the family who'd adopted him.

  The children she'd brought home from the street, victims of loss and abandonment themselves, had taken the old warhorse into their hearts, somehow sensing he was lost and abandoned, too. He was the grandfather they'd never had and he played the role to the hilt. He grumbled and griped and bullied them into behaving and then spoiled them with treats and presents.

  "What the hell else do I have to spend my money on," he'd grumble.

  What the hell would he have to spend his money on now? Even though age had forced him into retirement, Mohawk would always be a soldier. First Commander Roark had put him in charge of Wynne's safety and the old Perithian would rather die than fail to follow that order. Wynne had to believe he'd gotten out in time, but part of her knew Mohawk wouldn't leave Deck 4 without her.

  Her attempt at fantasy failed miserably as she should have known it would. She was too damn old for the fairytale nonsense of happily ever after.

  The battering of pebbles suddenly stopped. Feeling a slight change in course, Wynne opened her eyes and forced herself to look up and out into the great beyond. If it wasn't so frightening, it would be beautiful. It wasn't dark at all. The sky around her was bright with sunlight and directly ahead was the round ball of what had to be a planet. Darkness hid almost half of it. The rest was a mass of blue with indistinct spots of greens and browns. Clouds swirled around it and for a moment her heart leapt. She was going home.

  Her heart sank just as quickly. Whatever that round ball was, it wasn't Earth. They were days away from Earth and she hadn't been unconscious for long. She wasn't hungry or thirsty. She barely had to pee.

  She began to take stock of her coffin. It was small, but nowhere near as small as a burial container. Her seat was comfortable. The ergonomic support shifted with her when she moved and the dead wouldn't need to be strapped in. She tried to sit up and the seat moved with her. She wasn't upright, but her hands were now in reach of a control panel that spread across a dashboard just above her knees. There were other controls to her side.

  Convinced now that her casket was an escape pod, Wynne laced her fingers together in her lap, suddenly afraid she might inadvertently touch something she shouldn't. There was nothing like a steering wheel or joy stick, so the capsule had to be on some kind of autopilot. The question was to where and what kind of beings would she meet when she got there. There were a half dozen different types of beings on the Godan military base in Sector 3. She'd seen another dozen on board the Romer II. All that she'd met were cordial if not friendly, but according to Mohawk, the galaxy's inhabitants were much like Earth's; some good and some bad, and most falling somewhere in between.

  What if she was heading toward a planet of Hahnshin? They were the alien creatures that first invaded Earth and they weren't very nice at all. They killed everyone who stood in their way. And what about those awful people on the Romer II? How were they any better than the Hahnshin? What if they were all like... Prince Charming?

  He was one of them, wasn't he? Even though he'd probably saved her life, he was one of the bad guys, right? Good guys don't carry severed hands in their bags. And why did he save her life, anyway? What kind of horrible plans did he have for her?

  The seat slid back into its original position. The straps holding the padded square over her chest tightened and a soft, feminine voice spoke behind her ear.

  "Prepare for atmospheric entry."

  Prepare? How?

  Wynne stopped thinking about anything at all when the nose of her capsule burst into flames and she was suddenly engulfed in blinding white light. By the time she realized the light had no real effect on her sight or the interior of the capsule, it was all over.

  "Atmospheric entry complete. Prepare for landing."

  Really? Because that planet still looked pretty far away. Again, what was she supposed to do to prepare? She watched the ground become clearer as the pod sped toward it. No, not ground, but water, an ocean's worth of water.

  "But I can't swim!" she screeched.

  As if the control console heard her nonsensical cry, the capsule changed course to skim over the surface, but Wynne could see nothing but blue sky. Blue meant air, didn't it? Her school days seemed so long ago, but she remembered something about color spectrums and light waves scattering through molecules of air.

  This time, leaning forward wouldn't move the seat. Wynne tried to unlatch the harness that held her in place, but couldn't do that either. By pushing forward and craning her neck, she managed to peek over the edge of the pod. All she saw was w
ater. For miles and miles to either side of her stretched a blue-green ocean of rippling water. Far ahead along the horizon, she saw the contours of a sleeping giant; the head, nose, and chin clearly formed in profile. The valley of his neck dipped, and rose again into the broad expanse of his chest that tapered to the flat plain of his belly. She could almost picture the bent knee of one mountain of leg behind the extension of the other. That leg ended in a sharp drop off of land that was clearly a foot.

  The sight of land brought a silly grin of relief. The pod was taking her to land.

  She couldn't take her eyes from it until flashing lights drew her attention to the console. A series of figures appeared similar to those she remembered from her chemistry books. The symbols accompanying them were different, of course, but she was sure there was a computer somewhere in this pod sensing the composition of the world around her.

  The analysis continued and the land form grew closer. She could see the dark green of vegetation and the irregular line of beach along the shore. The pod slowed as it neared the land.

  Something bumped against the bottom of the pod. The capsule bounced and settled back into its line of flight. The something bumped again, and then rose, taking the capsule with it. For the first time, Wynne felt like the pod was not in control. It tilted dangerously to the side, giving Wynne her first clear view of what lay below. Ignorance was definitely better.

  The blue-green water was shallow and clear except where the dark, rolling shadow stirred up sand and stone from the bottom. While she only got a glimpse of it before the pod jolted back into position, it was enough to tell her that the creature below was huge. Straining against the straps that held her, Wynne craned her neck and watched the undulating phantom slide away, only to turn and charge back.

  She screamed when it slid over the capsule instead of under it. The capsule wobbled, sank, and strained to move forward against the added weight. Tentacles, all equipped with long rows of sucking lips and sharp, tiny teeth, roamed over the lid as if searching for an opening, and then it slipped away. With its release, the capsule shot forward. Twice more the tentacles reached for the pod, both times from behind.