“Send them here.”
“Command at Earth reports they are needed.”
She reined in the outburst that nearly came. “Prepare another fleet,” she said calmly. “The Jakar fleet is ready now and they’re needed here. At once. Send them. I want a blockade of this world and I want it now. Nothing comes, and nothing leaves.”
“Yes, my queen.” And the screen went black. A few moments later the warning sounded for the imminent jump through quantum space. Cee took a seat in the hall. The others found jumpseats as well and made themselves ready. Kang remained standing. A short countdown and the cruel wash of displacement gripped her, then it was gone, and she was shuddering again—this time from an actual, physical source—the quantum leap—and she was getting her bearings and rising.
They would now be back in the Kel system.
“Wait outside,” she told the others, many of whom were regaining their feet as well and moving back to the center of the hall. She handed the sword to her commander and went to the holding cell containing the girl. Outside the door she paused, then fired it open and, as she was stepping across the threshold, glanced over her shoulder to Kang, “I will speak with her first,” and she was inside and the door was sliding closed behind.
In the center of the room hung the Earth girl. Unconscious. Supposed herald.
Sorceress.
How did she do that?!
Everything that happened on that field was an assault on Cee’s reason. She needed to get past it. She made herself study the weak human form, drugged and hanging there. Wearing that strange armor and shackled securely to a heavy, oversized, X-shaped brace. Pathetic human girl from the pathetically weak Earth. Foretold, somehow, by the witch, Aesha, ancient Kel traitor; the one who would come, who would bring salvation.
Cee forced a derisive chuckle. It came out bitter in the echoing metal confines of the holding room—she had to make the laugh rise from her chest—and as the abbreviated sound faded she felt empty in its passing.
This was hardly a joke.
For this girl, plain-seeming though she might be, demanded more regard than Cee was presently willing to admit. This girl, it turned out, was something beyond even the rumors of the Prophecy, and what that meant vexed Cee with its degree of the incomprehensible. Nothing like what she did should exist. What happened out there on the field …
She stepped closer, cursing her nerves.
Jessica Paquin. That was the girl’s name. No threat now, though the potential of her threat was, apparently, very real. Mounted to the thick brace, held firmly in place. Inert. Their paths had finally collided, and, Cee convinced herself, she was about to find out every little thing this Jessica had done and put an end to her chapter. The herald’s road was at an end. Cee’s victory was at hand.
Closer she came. Braver.
Even Kang had been shocked in witness of those events. What the girl had done … impossible. Incredible. It would be unwise to simply dismiss her as anything but a major player.
But how?!
As Cee studied her, brown hair falling haphazardly across her features, head lolled to the side, unconscious, hardly even breathing, it seemed, utterly still, wondering whether she needed her hands free to do what she did …
That slightly gathering bravery faltered, the tingle of fear spreading.
When Kang held Jessica’s arms to her sides she’d been powerless. There had to be limits to what she could do. Whatever she’d done, whatever force she wielded, she did so with dramatic movement of the limbs, an impossible whirl of speed, channeling the as-yet-unknown ability, summoning it, some sort of psionic redirection, probably of energy that already existed, something locked in the fabric of space … movement looked to be the key.
And this, Cee realized, missing the connection until that instant, this “thing” the girl could do was what gave her the power to do what she did in Hong Kong, to single-handedly overcome the Bok.
As she looked over the heavy shackles locking the girl at wrist and ankle, holding her upright and taut even as her head lolled, she debated bringing in Kang. Having him on hand in case she awoke. Kang was on a hair-trigger as it was. Perhaps such involvement would help mitigate that. Give him something to do. Perhaps, as well, it would help calm her. With Horus immobilized in the next room, held fast in the strange field of specialized energy and completely vulnerable, the only thing, Cee suspected, keeping Kang from snapping and doing away with his enemy before anyone could stop him was the fact that Kang, by whatever impulse drove him, did not want it that way. Kang wanted to fight Horus. Defeat him in direct combat. To beat down his nemesis and break him. Not slaughter him while frozen in place.
But Kang was not needed here. Cee made herself believe it. Not in this little room. She assured herself the girl had been rendered harmless, and that she was fine in there on her own.
She would not give in to such fears.
And as she worked to restore confidence she injected it with a thrill, the thrill that, when all was done, not only would she learn of the Codes, she would learn this other thing the girl knew. Somehow, some way, this Jessica had learned to manipulate the energy of the space surrounding them and, as alarming as that was, as shocking, Cee was convinced it could be learned. By others.
By her.
Yes, she regarded the hanging form. Soon I will know it too.
Cautiously she came closer, daring to get near enough to reach and touch the unique armor. It was Kel, at least it seemed so in design. Ancient? Nothing that had been made on Cee’s world.
Why can’t I shake it? Behind the swell of victory, fighting to be savored—I did it! I captured the herald and the Amkradus will be mine!—the creeping fear conspired to cripple her. She admonished herself. The girl was locked securely, bonds no human could ever hope to break. Even so much as rattle. Truly, beyond anything that was needed. Heavy composite braces, a hand’s-breadth wide, one for each ankle and wrist, locking her flat to the wide beams; shape of an X, the whole apparatus strong enough to hold dozens upon dozens of tons of force. Kang himself would probably need an effort to break free. There was nothing human about her restraints, either in scale or in strength.
There was no reason, truly, to be afraid.
The fact of which startled Cee all the more when she jumped, reacting to the girl’s eyes as they opened. Quite unexpectedly and with no prior warning. One second her head lolled, not a single twitch anywhere, zero movement, every indication that she remained completely under the influence of the drug, then …
Yellow eyes. Staring at Cee from the first instant they flicked open. Bright and glinting. Like she knew exactly where Cee was and when those eyes flashed they were already focused and boring right into her. Nothing else about the girl moved. Her head remained where it was, drooped to the side, tail of hair hanging alongside and unmoving, loose strands across her face. Nothing. Just … sharply awake, suddenly aware, and those eyes were aimed right into hers and it was only after a difficult moment that Cee was able to regain enough composure to take a controlled step back to where she’d been, not too smoothly, holding that dangerous gaze even as she worked to force calm into her own.
But the eyes were throwing her. Not just the stare, not just the oddly real power behind them—a sense of supreme intensity Cee couldn’t shake—but how Kel they were. Damningly Kel eyes set in a human face, and it was ruining any chance she had at poise. She faltered and found herself—not believing the strength of the urge—working hard not to turn and run screaming from the room.
Control yourself! she wasn’t about to lose it. Dangerous in those first seconds, so critical to set the stage for all that would come. An entire interrogation yet to be, and if she didn’t get control she would flee and lose any hope of future gain. She’s locked tight! she tried to rationalize.
She can’t do anything!
As the human girl continued staring from below that heavy brow, head hanging same as it was, eyes wide and clear and no other change; as Cee managed not t
o rush to escape, she finally gathered her wits. Enough, at least, to continue. As yet there was no other movement. Just the eyes.
Deliberately she reached for the translation wand, debating what would be her first words. Should she get Kang after all? Have him to hand? The drug should’ve held the girl much longer than this. Cee did not expect to be talking to her now. Her rise should not have been so sudden.
She suppressed a harder shudder, swallowed down the fear and raised the wand to her mouth.
“My name is Cee Ranok,” she held herself to her full height. “Queen of the Kel.” The translator’s computerized voice repeated her words crisply in English.
The girl moved. Raised her head, tail of hair dragging and falling across her shoulder, head coming erect and she was fully extended and, despite the shackles and the compromising, X-position of her limbs, despite the signs of her desperate fight for survival, despite being so recently drugged—despite all she’d been through to reach that moment and despite the fact that she was, in fact, the captive, she was yet filled with dignity beyond reason. Managing, again, to unsettle Cee in ways she’d never been. Looking dead ahead, those yellow, powerful eyes, piercing her.
Then she spoke.
“You won’t need that,” she said in perfectly clear, perfectly spoken Kel. It was a quiet voice. A soft, young voice. Such an edge behind it that it ripped a tear straight across Cee’s mind. That voice held the ages. “And I know exactly who you are.”
Cee’s arm dropped to her side, translator loose in her grip and nearly falling.
Again she fought the urge to run.
**
“Let’s go!” Bianca worked the controls. She drove hard around, frustration jacked off the scale and she wanted all these Kel, all of them, dead and vaporized and she wanted it now. She spun the Reaver onto a lock and held the spinal mounts open until the heat sinks were overwhelmed and shut them down; twin beams of steady, sustained destruction, stuck to the back of her target and tracking as she mirrored its desperate escape with an uncanny sixth-sense, the beams never tearing away. The target ship succumbed just before the sink alarms shut them down. Cracked and imploded in a white-hot, perfectly spherical burst of energy. Nuclear death.
“Come on!”
They’d decided. Bianca won.
They were going for Jess.
“Lindin here!” Nani had just connected him.
“We have to go!” Nani told him. It was like being in the middle of a fist-fight, that level of insanity, trying to hand off the fight to someone else, conversations in shouts, no time for any sort of real discussion.
“Go?!” Lindin’s voice was strained. He was desperate. They all were.
“We’ve got to save Jessica!”
Silence. All the other sounds continued. Battle hits, shots, the power of the engines that moved them; collective intakes of breath, sharp sucks and cringes as everyone reacted to imminent impacts, grunts as they connected, sounds that had been peppering the entire sequence of actions the whole time. But now there was a conspicuous silence among them. No more shouting. Lindin’s absence of response. Bianca expected all sorts of questions, an argument all up and down the line about the Reaver leaving—this was Lindin, after all—and just what the hell did they mean? and Why? and No! and she wondered what Nani hoped to accomplish even going this route, trying to get agreement if they’d already decided, knowing it would only stretch their rescue and now they were probably too late anyway …
“Go,” came Lindin’s voice. “We’ll hold it down here.” His response was measured. Bianca felt her mouth hanging open. A solid hit rocked the bridge and snapped her from that lapse, yanking her instantly back to full attention but …
What? Lindin didn’t even ask why. Or, for that matter, he didn’t even ask what the hell Jess needed to be saved from. Or even where she was.
“We’ll be back!” Nani offered, looking across the bridge at Bianca with an equal measure of surprise.
“Just save her.” The sounds of Lindin’s own furious battle could be heard in the background. “Whatever it is, if she needs you … go. This isn’t going to get any better here.”
Nani wasted no time. She tapped the screens with fresh determination even as she spoke to Bianca.
“Get us out of here,” she said. “I’m setting drive coordinates. Clear the battle and get us to calm space. Steady as she goes.”
Steady as she … That was such a random, Earth expression … Bianca tried to remember if she’d ever said that to Nani. For some reason it really snapped her out of everything, and for a disorienting moment she had no idea what she was even doing.
She got it together quickly.
“Steady as she goes.” She couldn’t wait for all this to be over.
With a deliberate effort to extract she juked left then right, dodged around an assailant and hit the juice. Full on and everything the old Kel warship had in her. More than Bianca had every asked and everyone was slammed into their seat, inertial dampeners or no, and the Reaver was gone. Warping space so fast it looked like they were actually hitting light speed right now. So fast it actually hurt. As the military pilots said, they were bugging out. She had no destination in mind, just anywhere but there, and with authority the Reaver obeyed. Leaving any and all pursuit far behind.
Nothing would catch them.
Then they were clear and Nani hit the quantum drive. The staggering shift of light years seized them.
Destination, Jessica.
CHAPTER 60: THE BLACK FORTRESS
For Bishop Raal this was a glorious day. He savored each step as the small group wound their way through the dark fortress. The Queen’s dreadnought had arrived, docked at the massive port near the city, the group debarked with full escort, boarded the monorail and zipped here, where all would soon be revealed. Cee had kept him by her side since her rise to the throne and together they set a course into the future.
Raal spared a glance over his shoulder, at Kang who trailed behind, sulking—the one dark spot on this little parade. If the guards were indifferent or nervous, the scientists ambivalent or curious, Kang was the one among them who was outright dour. Since his arrival in deep space not much had gone his way. On the surface many big things had happened as he demanded, his inclusion within the Kel, his position with Cee at the top, but Raal knew how dissatisfied was the beast. He’d meant to be in charge by now, and yet each day he became more the queen’s pet. Raal was impressed with the way she handled him. Kang grumbled, he complained, he even yelled on occasion, but he listened and he obeyed.
Up front the new field was in heavy use on the human, Horus. If human he was. He looked human, in every way, but he most decidedly was not. Some sort of freak, like Kang, but where Kang had at least taken on a visage to match, Horus still looked quite normal.
Behind the supernaturally powered human, out of Raal’s line of sight and wheeled along on her own transport sled, was the herald. The one they’d been searching for. The one the Prophecy said would come, any mention of which the queen openly forbade, but which, Raal had to be honest, each now looked to with eager anticipation.
**
“No.” Bianca refused to accept it.
“These are fresh arrivals,” Nani was madly checking systems and sucking in scanner data, working fast in the face of this fresh shock.
They’d just left one battle and dropped right into the midst of an entire Kel fleet, poised in wait.
“They’re responding,” she added. “I’m scraping information. They’re going to lock us out any second.”
Nervously Bianca held her hands at the Reaver’s controls, trying not to flinch, eyeing the multiple targets in orbit and ready to slam them into action at the first sign of anything. If a star twinkled she would bank hard left and hit the gas. The sight of the massive gathering of Kel warships in orbit around Hamonhept made her skin crawl. Ranged around this side of the planet, backs to the giant ringed motherworld, blue Saturn, locking down the planet where Jess was supposed
to be.
In those first deadly seconds there was no reaction from the fleet.
And no immediate sign of her friend.
Bianca glanced at everyone present; Satori, Willet, Darvon, Heath and Pete, each of them shooting tense stares at the images on the big screen, at Bianca, at Nani, at each other. Nani’s hands flew faster than ever. The seconds ticked audibly, though there was no sound. Nani shook her head. Bringing up page after page and moving on, sorting what she found and looking for clues.
“Ok,” she said at last. “This fleet just got here. They’re almost as disoriented as us.” Bianca swallowed. A large group of the enemy ships finally lit up—what had probably only been two minutes of actual delay, feeling like an hour—powering up and moving into an attack formation in response to the arrival of the Reaver. Nani ignored them: “Their orders are to blockade this world,” she reported. “The queen’s dreadnought is gone.”
“Did they take her?” Bianca’s voice was on the rise.
“Yes,” Nani said, confirming as she spoke. “The dreadnought departed with captives. I’ve hijacked that much information. They got Jess, and they got Zac too.”
“Zac?” Satori asked before anyone else could. “How the hell did they capture Zac?”
That seemed impossible.
“Unknown.” Then: “We’ve got to move.” The Kel ships were now accelerating. Closing the gap.
“Where did they take her?”
Nani looked up. “Kel.” She looked back down, tapping more screens. “The queen issued orders, called in this blockade then took the captives back to Kel.”
“We have to go after her.” It was Darvon. The Kel were closing. This little group of adventurers had reached a dead-end.
Bianca couldn’t speak. Nani resisted immediately. “To Kel?” She was shaking her head. “She’s not here. We didn’t make it. We tried, we came … she’s not here. We’ve got to go back to Earth. They need us.”
“She needs us.”
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 64