That morning, knowing they both had a full day, she’d whispered an invitation for a romantic break in the grotto instead of dinner. Maybe that would be enough to keep them going.
Meanwhile, keeping the secret that the Ship was awake and alert wore on her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told Kelse, except that it seemed like he would want to share it with others and she didn’t. A confrontation avoided. No way to run a marriage.
Now she was striding up the trail, stretching her muscles for more flexible sex, when she felt the sting in her neck, clapped a hand to her throat to rub it, and wondered muzzily about bees and wasps. Then she was falling, and the last thing she saw was Dirk Lascom’s gleeful face. Fear, even concern, was oddly absent.
Kelse was late to his rendezvous with Fern, and as much as he wanted to think about loving and touching, irritation whipped through him and had him gritting his teeth.
The minute he reached the grotto, he realized something was wrong. There was no scent of Fern, no sign. He’d left footprints in the soil along the top of the rise, she hadn’t.
His heart began pounding, knowledge trickling through him that she was in danger. He brushed away a swath of blossoming vine to reveal the aux computer screen. “Show the location of Fern Bountry,” he ordered, his voice too harsh.
At the bright green icon, the searing breath that had stuck in his lungs pushed out, and he dragged another deep one in. The icon was motionless.
The screen went from a map to the pulsing red of an emergency—her locator was being removed. Randolph’s face appeared on the screen.
He was panting and fear lived in his eyes. “Fern’s been kidnapped.”
“I know. Split screen,” Kelse ordered. But he was too late, her locator wristband had been pulled off. It showed steady and orange.
“Dirk doesn’t trust me anymore, but I know their meeting places. I’ll find out where they’re holding her.”
“Be discreet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you find her, report to me. Do not try to handle this yourself.” He didn’t know what Dirk had in mind for her. Torture. Rape. Terrible things.
Kelse prayed that the man wanted her alive to bargain for something and not for pure vengeance.
Kelse hadn’t told her he loved her lately. Not for days. He hadn’t been tender to her. He sure hadn’t been able to talk to her.
He could hear the blood rushing through his temples, knew he’d been a stupid fool.
He only hoped he wasn’t too late, that he wouldn’t lose her.
That he hadn’t screwed up their marriage permanently.
He couldn’t lose her. It would break him. Just the thought had him running on pure adrenaline, heightened his senses, kicked in all his Flair.
Randolph’s guard said, “We’ll get her, Captain. I’ll alert the other guards.”
“Discreetly. Do not converge on the area, proceed with your usual duties until I give any orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kelse turned and ran back to his quarters, drew up the map on the command console, stared at it.
Twelve against the eleven core Ship for Ourselves members if he took in the new guards who’d never fought in a real battle. So easy for Fern to get dead.
“Dammit to fliggering hell!” He slammed his fist on the console.
“Captain?” It was a tentative whisper.
He drew his blazer, spun around. No one was there. Glancing at the life signs of his quarters, he saw only his.
“Who’s that?”
“It is We.”
Something was wrong with the voice, like there was more than one, like it was a chorus of ghosts. An atavistic shiver whipped along his spine.
“Who. Is. That?”
A metallic tinkling, almost as if someone ran nervous fingers through a jangle of bracelets. He was alone in his quarters.
“It is We, the Ship. Nuada’s Sword.”
Kelse’s mind went blank. “What?”
“Fern reactivated Our Autonomous Intelligence Module. We’ve been alive and Awake since the night before the lab launched.”
“Alive and Awake,” Kelse repeated.
“Yessss.” There was a few seconds’ pause. “Our sentience was originally initiated just before undocking by Captain Whitecloud. When he died, his successor . . . sent Us into hibernation. We had only enough slight awareness to initiate one or two actions.”
Things fell into place. “Like Awakening Fern.”
“Yes. You wanted that. Fern wanted that. An automatic Awakening had been programmed in Us during Whitecloud’s Captaincy, should it be necessary.”
“Hibernation,” Kelse repeated. Something about the way the Ship had said the word made Kelse think it was more like murder. “But Fern brought you back to life, and I now have more assets than I thought. I suppose you are the reason the refurbishment of some of the systems are going so well?”
“Yes. But We wish to offer you information.”
“Yes?”
“Fern is located in the northwest corner of room three-twenty-two, level seventeen, sector five. Her life signs are stable and in the human norm for a person in stressful circumstances. There are eleven people in her immediate area.”
A map rose to the desktop screen, along with eleven indicators. The eleven who’d conspired to murder Moungala had Fern.
And had nothing to lose.
Sweat beaded the back of Kelse’s neck, slid over his skin and he had to regulate his rough breathing again. “Thank you, Ship. What else?”
“We have studied all the data of all Our systems during the time We were shut—”
“Unconscious,” Kelse said.
“Yes. Unconscious. The previous Captain, Kiet Moungala, liked to walk Our halls unseen.”
“I was unaware that Kiet had a Flair for invisibility.”
“He did not. He had a cape made from light-bending fabric. Such information is in the files, and those who made the garments have since died.
The cloak has a hood and gloves.”
“An invisibility cape.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“We sense it in the secret drawer in the bed.”
“Right.” By the time he went to the bed, there was a slight vertical protrusion at the head. A drawer no more than fifteen centimeters deep.
Reaching in, he found a package.
A ping came from the command console and Chloe’s face showed up, along with Randolph’s.
“We’ve found Fern.”
“I know,” Kelse said.
“Randolph, the guard, and I will meet you in the short corridor just south of three-twenty-two. It’s usually clear.”
“Chloe—” But her line went dead, and when Kelse called her back, he got her cache.
“We are on private red alert,” the Ship said, “and accessing Our files.”
Kelse grunted. He didn’t know what the Ship meant, or what it could do. Maybe he’d been told, but it was too long ago.
Too many unknowns and too many untrained people on his side. Chloe hadn’t fought in who knew how long. With placation in mind, he said,
“Ship, see what you can find on the circumstances regarding Moungala’s and the three security officers’ death.”
“Yes, Captain. We have been reviewing current events.”
“Fine.” Five minutes later he was dressed in the stupid but useful cloak and slipping along the least used corridors—as monitored by the Ship and whispered in his ear insert.
His heart was thumping hard, his palms sweating, and he kept images of past victims he’d seen and known from impinging on his brain.
Finally he was there.
The corridor was completely empty except for the two men who guarded the door, and Kelse certainly had surprise on his side. They wouldn’t see their disablement coming.
They didn’t. He took each out with one blow, then pulled thin flex restraints from his tactical belt and secured their hands behin
d their backs. He dragged them to the corridor where Chloe and Randolph should be, but they hadn’t yet arrived.
Kelse didn’t like the cloak. Terrible to fight in. Only good to spy with.
He returned to the door and slowly opened it a crack. The room was eight meters long and four wide. Big enough that no one was near the door. No one was watching. But there were too many for Kelse to take down by himself, either personally or with a blazer. He’d need at least two more decent fighters.
First he had to check Fern. He was incapable of leaving without seeing whether she was hurt.
She was still in the corner like the Ship had told him, sitting on the floor, her head on her knees. She wore her armor and didn’t appear hurt.
He could hear only his own heart pounding. His breath stopped, held, then he managed to force it out. They’d been in worse situations. He could count on her if he knew whether she was in fighting trim.
A motion to his right caught his attention. To his complete surprise, Dirk, the tech, and the guards were looking at a star chart that showed the wormhole. Dirk was serious. Crazy, but serious. He believed what he’d convinced himself to believe. The wormhole led to civilized space.
Kelse used his lightest tread, aware of the slight sway of the cape’s fabric, moving toward Fern. When he was within a couple of meters, she lifted her head enough that he saw her eyes over her knees, staring straight at him.
Love smashed through him. He could not lose her.
Live or die together.
Thirteen
Fern stared at him. Maybe she could see him.
Of course she couldn’t.
But he could feel her. If he stopped and felt instead of acting with mind and body. If he accessed his heart and the golden bond throbbing between them that he’d been ignoring. Yes, he could feel her, the reassurance . . . the love.
And maybe he could tell how hurt she was. He opened himself completely. The rush of fear and love and need was sucked from him into her.
Jetted like a cut artery, as if all he was, all he’d ever felt for her, went straight to her.
She didn’t rock back, didn’t move, didn’t seem fazed by all he felt. He figured that if he’d been on the receiving end of such a surge, he’d have crumbled.
His woman was strong, and lately he hadn’t acknowledged that in his marriage. Tried to keep all his worries from her. Hide himself.
But she was alive and he’d do better.
Now he studied her, the easy flow of emotions from her to him. Reassurance. He almost snorted. Yeah, he’d needed that. Love. Nope, couldn’t live without that, either. Need and desire and yearning. He hoped she always felt that for him.
But there was a sluggishness in her, a touch of gray black that he didn’t understand. She lifted her head and angled it, and he saw an angry red mark on her neck. She’d been drugged. He moved closer.
BLAZER came to his mind. Telepathy! He stiffened, noted that the cape didn’t sway with any movement. Good.
His wife wanted a weapon. Of course she would.
HOW ARE YOU? he asked.
She rolled her head back and forth on her knees. Not one hundred percent then.
GOOD ENOUGH. She curved her spine in a stretch and lifted her torso vertebra by vertebra, stretched her legs out one by one and rotated her feet.
He didn’t know if she was healthy enough. Didn’t think so. LOVE YOU!
Her smile was faint.
Sinking in increments to a crouch, he reached for his small ankle blazer and pushed it to her. Their fingers brushed, and the relief, the yearning for more of her touch shot through him.
But she was looking down, huddling as if beaten—an image she wanted her captors to see.
Anger sizzled his blood and hazed his vision. He wanted to kill.
The curve of her fingers over his boot toe, barely a touch and not skin to skin. OUR PEO-PLE!
He didn’t agree, these men had set themselves apart from their community, but he couldn’t argue. And the edge of other anger, among the men, reached him. The tech wanted to steal an escape pod and launch it through the wormhole.
Dirk still wanted the Ship.
Kelse could use the disagreement, if he hurried, got reinforcements.
LOVE YOU, he sent to Fern.
WILL FIGHT, Fern returned.
He ghosted to the door, through it, leaving it ajar. The corridor was still empty.
The cape should remain secret. He stripped it and the gloves off, rolled them up, and placed them against the wall. They vanished. He marked the wall.
Randolph and Chloe and a guard, an older man, were waiting down the hall. Dirk’s two men had disappeared. Chloe jerked a nod at him. “We have a brig. They’re in it.”
“I believe everyone remaining with Dirk was in the plot to kill Moungala.”
Her eyes lit with anger and determination.
Randolph’s jaw flexed. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t know or see.” Randolph stared at him with steady blue eyes, serious expression. There was a change in the lines of his face that showed he’d passed the boundary from youth to man. “I want to come. I’m not as strong as I will be, but I’m fast and I’m an excellent shot. I’ve been practicing with the guards.” His shoulders squared. “This is my mess to clean up.”
“It’s Dirk’s mess,” Chloe bit off.
“I helped make it.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Kelse said. A touch of fear had wisped through Fern. She’d sensed the argument winding down.
He glanced at the guard, an older man, who nodded and said, “Randolph will do.”
“All right. Fern will be fighting, too. She’s good, but will be slow. They drugged her.” Fury spurted through him, ran along the network of his nerves. Energizing. He would not be stopped. “Try to keep them alive,” he said as much to remind himself as the others.
Randolph’s eyes widened, but he nodded. When the guard handed him another blazer, Randolph checked it competently, put it on wide and stun.
Chloe’s mouth flattened, then she said, “If you hadn’t stepped in and infused the crew with a sense of hope, a rededication to the mission, Dirk would have had all the power, all the luxuries the Ship could command. All the women he wanted. Simple motive for hating you, Kelse, basic greed. You took that away from him.”
“I stole that from him, so he’s—”
“Stolen Fern,” Rudolph said.
Kelse briefed them on the men’s placements. “Let’s do this.”
He went in, fast and low and streaming blazer fire. Two seconds and Fern was moving with him. Then they were too close and fighting hand to hand.
Dirk’s men were good and they were fighting for their lives. Kelse’s world narrowed to blows and kicks. It was over before his anger was purged.
He wheeled toward Dirk, who was running. The man rammed into Randolph, snatched his blazer. Dirk grinned at Kelse, that mad grin. He thumbed the blazer on high and shot, missed Kelse; Chloe screamed.
Randolph grabbed for the blazer, but Dirk was too fast again. He stuck the weapon under his own chin and fired into his brain.
The smell of blood and death rose.
“FatherDam!” yelled Randolph. He ran to his grandmother.
Fern was holding Chloe. Her eyes were glazed.
“No!” yelled Randolph.
“Don’t crowd me,” Fern snapped. “I’ve called for Healers. She’ll be all right. She’s tough.” Fern looked at the guard and Randolph, said, “Pray.”
They all did. The Healers ran through the door a minute later and took Chloe away, chanting spells.
Kelse prayed for her, and, holding his love, said words of thankfulness. Slowly they walked away from the room that Kelse never wanted to see again in his life. He stopped in the corridor to pick up the cloak and gloves, showed them to Fern.
Techs trotted past them, ready to take Dirk’s body to the decomposer and clean up the mess in the room.
Kelse and Fern had barely reached their quarte
rs when a large and booming voice announced: “This is the Ship, Nuada’s Sword. I have accessed My files, reviewed them, and enhanced the images of the night Our former Captain was killed. Watch and listen.”
They did. Kelse figured everyone’s attention was glued to the action playing before them. First the killing of the security guards. Then Dirk was at Moungala’s door, requesting to speak with him. He entered the Captain’s quarters and killed the man with a poison dart, he tried to access the Captain’s console. Failed, snarled, was called away to check on something new happening at the cryonics bay door.
Then the angle shifted, blurred, sharpened.
“These are the actions of the last hour,” the Ship said.
Kelse saw himself rushing into the room to face the men who had killed Kiet. He watched the fight. “Your form is off,” he said to Fern, glad to have her in his arms.
Ship explained everything, notified the crew of the status of Chloe Hernandez—good—and that the criminals were in the brig. It advised that the men be sterilized.
Snorting, Kelse released Fern and moved to the command console, interrupted the Ship, initiated his own vid. “We are pleased that the Ship’s Autonomous Intelligence Module is working. However, the determination of the punishment of the remaining individuals who murdered the security officers and Captain Moungala will be determined by the crew.”
He stopped a sigh. All he wanted now was to make love with Fern.
“My fellow travelers, I thank you for your support in this difficult time. Let us mourn for our lost ones and go on with our lives. Blessed be.”
It wasn’t a great speech, but it got the job done.
Fern watched him with violet, serious eyes, then said, “We need to talk. And this time we lay it all out.”
Great. His gut clenched and heart plummeted. He checked the bond between them. It was open and still golden. Maybe he had a chance.
He rubbed a scar at his hairline, felt a red flush on his neck. “I am not coping well.”
Fern couldn’t believe the admission. She stared at him. “No. You’re not coping well. You’re coping magnificently.” She yanked his head down to kiss him, with her tongue running along his lips, then into his mouth to taste her man, then back out to nip his lower lip.
Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta Page 12