Diffraction

by Jess Anastasi

  She ran with the others down the short tubeway and through the Ebony Winter’s atmospheric doors. Qae was barking instructions through his comm to the crew he’d left onboard, ordering them to do an emergency breakaway. It would probably damage some of the Ebony Winter’s docking clamps, but that was better than getting caught in the explosion.

  She followed the others up-ship, everyone cramming into the bridge as the Ebony Winter whined and gave a sharp jerk, the screech of shearing metal echoing through the hull.

  Qae muttered a few curses but didn’t say anything else as the engines flared to maximum capacity, no doubt burning the tubeway and part of the docking arm they’d been attached to.

  On the control console screen, an alarm of incoming weapon fire clanged, and through the viewport, several other ships that had been docked at the station made similar hard and fast launches, leaving trails of debris from broken moorings.

  As the Ebony Winter blasted into open space, an IPC flagship hovered in the distance, thin flares of light trailing the missiles streaking toward the station.

  “Give it more,” Qae ordered.

  “We could burn out sub-light engines,” the crew member at the helm replied in a strained voice.

  “They can be fixed later. If we survive. Punch it up.”

  The Ebony Winter’s engines roared, and they shot up at three times the speed, putting them out past the flagship in a matter of seconds.

  “It’s the Marshal Beacon,” Zander muttered.

  “We had a run-in with them when we lost the Imojenna,” Rian replied, tone grim.

  “Guess it’s a safe bet Captain Admiral Barias isn’t human any longer. She was a damned good soldier.” Zander shook his head, looking hard-hit by this news.

  The viewport flickered and switched over to show the vision from behind the ship as they zoomed farther away. Half a dozen missiles peppered the station, breaking it apart with several large explosions, setting off a chain of smaller detonations as the structure fractured and fell away into pieces.

  “How many innocents do you think they killed this time?” Zander muttered, turning away from the screen.

  “I don’t understand how they can get away with blowing up an entire space station,” Zahli put in from where she stood next to Tannin.

  “They’ll come up with some airtight cover story for the newsreels so people won’t even think twice,” Rian replied. He glanced over at his cousin. “Set a course for the Barbary Belt and put us in void-space before they start firing on the escaping ships.”

  Even as Rian said the words, new flashes of weapon fire emanated from the huge flagship, this time aimed at the few other ships like theirs that had managed to disembark before the station was decimated.

  Qae swore, leaning over the command console and assisting his crew to get the ship to hyper-launch.

  After ripping away from the station moorings and all the destruction from the missiles, the slip into void-space and out of danger was jarringly peaceful.

  Silence stretched on the bridge, everyone no doubt coming to grips with what had just happened, how close they’d come to getting killed yet again.

  “Well, shite. I need a stiff drink,” Qae announced, breaking the tense, quiet atmosphere. “Been saving a bottle of Violaine for a rainy day, and I’m pretty sure it’s pissing down right now.”

  “Jezus, yes.” Rian’s words puffed out on an exhale. “Hit me up, cuz.”

  “Hang on just a minute.” Kira stepped into Rian’s path when he tried to follow Qae to the galley. “You were almost dead.”

  She glanced past Rian to Varean. “And you were dead. So neither of you are doing anything until I’ve given you a full checkup.”

  Rian deftly sidestepped her. “Check Donnelly all you want. I’ll need at least half a bottle of that Violaine before you come anywhere near me with your medical instruments.”

  As Rian left for the galley, she focused a determined look on Varean.

  “I’m fine,” he said holding up both hands.

  “Humor me.” She went over and grabbed his arm, tugging him into a walk before he could think about escaping. Maybe he was fine, but she needed to see for herself. And the only words she was going to believe on the matter right now were the ones she read on the screen of the med scanner.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Varean let Kira tow him along, back down to the Ebony Winter’s small medbay, where he’d woken up with that damn sheet on his face, telling him that Kira had very definitely thought he was dead. And since she was a highly trained surgeon, it probably meant that, for a little while at least, he had most certainly checked out in the final sense of the words.

  So yeah, if she wanted to scan him or whatever else to assure herself he was fine, he’d humor her. But he had no doubt he was fine. Better than fine, actually. Like, operating on a higher plane of existence with abilities he’d never dreamed possible fine.

  The Mar’keish had been right. Access to his inherent abilities had been there all along, in the guise of the blue star out of his reach during his earlier hallucinations. But when he’d been dragged into the dark pits of the Reidar consciousness, the fear of anything happening to Kira had unleashed the parts of himself he hadn’t been able to accept before. Knowledge had flooded his mind, and he’d known what to do. All up, it was a pretty damned heady feeling.

  Kira steered him to the gurney in the middle of the room, the sheet still sprawled across the end, spilling onto the ground in a light blue cascade where he’d tossed it earlier.

  He obediently sat on the edge and then lay back when she gestured for him to do so, all without saying a thing. But apparently he didn’t need to. As Kira fired up the diagnostic system from the screen inset above the head of the gurney, she shot him a chiding look.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re totally pandering to me?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He almost managed to get the words out with no grin, but failed at the last second. Her scowl deepened, but he simply crossed his ankles and folded his hands on his stomach. Might as well be comfortable while she ran her tests.

  Kira muttered something unintelligible, for the moment concentrating on her scanners and the readings. He didn’t want to say that pretty much dying had given him a new lease on life, and everything looked all shiny and new, but he was definitely in a glass-half-full mood. So he was more than happy to lay there in the simplicity of the moment, watching her. No one was immediately trying to kill them, and for the first time in his life, he knew exactly who he was, everything he was capable of, and recognized his place in the universe.

  “I don’t understand.” Kira stepped back after a long while, expression creased with confusion, looking at him like a puzzle she couldn’t solve. “It must have something to do with your Reidar DNA. Some of these readings are impossible, others don’t even make sense; they’re nothing like the scans I took earlier. And you know what else doesn’t make sense? How you’re even lying there looking at me. You were dead. You stopped breathing, your heart stopped, there was no brain function. The R and R unit couldn’t revive you. You were completely, clinically dead.”

  He sat up, swinging his legs off the edge of the gurney so he could face her. Reaching out, he grabbed her hands, not second-guessing the impulse.

  “I can’t tell you what happened from a medical point of view, but I can tell you that I was never really gone.”

  “But what you did when you came out of the hatchway and blasted all those officers and agents. Is that one of the things you learned after you left us on Barasa?”

  “Yes and no. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll clarify later, once we go back up-ship, because I’m sure the others are waiting for an accounting, too.”

  When she began to pull back, he tightened his grip on her hands, drawing her nearer instead.

  “Kira, I know we were both hurting, that we thought this couldn’t be, and I honestly didn’t try to fight for you the way I should have. I thought y
ou’d be safer if I wasn’t around—”

  This time when she tugged against his hold, he had to let her go.

  “Don’t apologize for that, please.” She turned away from him, and the action was like taking a knife to the chest. He’d hoped after everything, the two of them could resolve their differences. He didn’t expect her to jump all in with him, but they at least needed to clear the air. If they couldn’t, seeing each other every day, living on the same ship—it was going to be awkward and difficult as hell.

  “I just wanted to make things okay between us.”

  Her shoulders tightened, and he cursed under his breath. Despite his newfound abilities, it seemed his aptitudes still didn’t extend to interpersonal relations.

  “I’m the one who should be apologizing.” Her voice was so low he almost didn’t catch the words.

  He pushed up from the gurney, stepping closer to her. “I don’t understand.”

  She sniffed then turned to him, her sage eyes filled with remorse. “I’m such a terrible person. Back on Barasa, I tried to make you think there was nothing between us, that you were my patient and nothing more. I shouldn’t have tried to hurt you like that, but I thought you needed to go with the Mar’keish to be safe, and I didn’t know how else to get you to leave. I was terrified Rian would kill you, not to mention the Reidar and anyone else with a long enough memory to be afraid of the Mar’keish.”

  She blew out a ragged breath, dropping her gaze, as though she was too ashamed to look at him. “And when you came back to help us, I couldn’t think of anything beyond my own feelings, didn’t want to deal with you because I knew it would make things that much harder when you left again. I failed you as a doctor, because I should have been able to put that aside and treat you the way I would anyone else.”

  Stunned, he stared down at the top of her bent head, lights above them shining on her dark hair. That’s what she thought had happened? He had never, for even one second, believed any of that about her. The notion hadn’t even crossed his mind.

  “Kira, you’re being too hard on yourself. You’re definitely not a terrible person. In fact, you’re the least terrible person I know.”

  “But the way I treated you—”

  “I realized, a day or two after I left, what you were doing. I know you didn’t mean what you said on Barasa. And I understand not wanting to get close to me again when I came back, because I did plan on leaving, and you needed to protect yourself. You need to forgive yourself, because I’m certainly not holding anything against you.”

  Surprise crossed her features. “You’re not upset with me?”

  “Not for even a second.”

  She made a relieved noise that landed somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and fell against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, the acute relief at feeling her body against his again pure euphoria.

  “Oh god, I thought you’d died.” Her arms were tight around him, voice muffled with her face pressed into his chest.

  He cupped the back of her head, cradling her against him. “I know, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “And it wasn’t until after, when I thought you were gone, that I realized how selfish I was being. I thought it was too late to ever tell you I was sorry. Then I didn’t have time to process everything before Zahli came in and told me we were going to get Rian.”

  “I wish I could have protected you from all that.” He tilted her head up so he could see her face. “While we’re both onboard the Imojenna, following Rian around the galaxy, I can’t promise that something like that won’t happen again. But next time, I’ll be there with you.”

  “Wait. What do you mean both on the Imojenna? Aren’t you going back to the Mar’keish?”

  “Well, if it’s okay with you, Doc, I’m going to accept the spot on the crew Sherron offered me, whenever he gets the ship back.”

  “But I thought—”

  “That Sherron and I hated each other? For now, let’s just say we came to an understanding.”

  “So you’re staying?” Her expression had become dazed.

  “Geez, don’t look so excited.”

  “But now that the Reidar know about you and everything you’ve learned, won’t they be coming after you?” Kira asked, a deep note of concern in her tone.

  “Not right away. They know exactly what I’m capable of, so they’re not going to come charging. My guess is they’ll take their time, come up with a strategy, then launch some kind of sneak attack when I least expect it.”

  Kira frowned at him. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Don’t worry, Kira, we’ll handle it. All of us, together.”

  She shook her head, as if to clear it. “Rian is really going to let you stay? And you’re not going to try to kill each other?”

  “Not even a little.”

  Her brow creased. “I’m missing so much here—”

  “And I’ll tell you all about it, but first…” He leaned down, catching her mouth beneath his, the kiss so complete and good, it speared from his lips right into the depths of his soul.

  She sighed against his mouth, the sound partly of relief, partly of contentment. And he completely understood the sentiment. Kissing her now, with all that had passed between them, and the future spanning in front of them, was a coming home in a way he’d never experienced before.

  There’d always been a hole in his heart, a gap in his psyche from growing up alone, having no place of his own, and no one who loved him. He’d thought since it was all he’d known, he could simply join the military, find a place to belong, and continue on in life well enough. And while he’d found that, he still hadn’t felt complete. In fact, he hadn’t realized how incomplete he’d really been until he’d met Kira, discovered the truth of his heritage, and awoken to his full potential.

  At a knocking, Varean broke the kiss, looking over his shoulder to find Zahli standing in the medbay hatchway, clearly trying not to grin at Kira but failing miserably. She might as well have given her friend a thumbs-up and rah-rah dance.

  “Sorry, but Rian and Qae have called everyone down to the cargo hold.”

  Kira stepped out of his arms, smoothing down her shoulder-length hair, though it wasn’t any more mussed than usual.

  “I suppose I should be glad Rian left us alone for this long.” She glanced up at him, setting her shoulders as if preparing for a fight. “Are you ready to face them all?”

  He smiled, wrapping an arm around her upper back. “Stand down. The fight is over for today.”

  She blew out a breath, some of the tension leaving her frame. “Sorry, it’s just after everything, I find it hard to believe they’re suddenly on friendly terms with you.”

  “Like I said, Rian and I reached an understanding.”

  “Whatever that means,” she muttered. “All right, let’s go then.”

  Kira practically marched over to Zahli, shooting her friend an unreadable look, but something seemed to pass between the two women. As he stepped through the hatchway, Zahli moved in beside him.

  “Varean, I’m really sorry for my part in everything you went through.”

  So that was Kira’s play? Silently glare everyone into apologizing to him? He appreciated her attempt to make things up to him, even though he didn’t need or expect it. That was firmly in the past, even though it had been only days ago. Besides, it was kind of like those incidences had happened to a completely different person.

  “Thanks, Zahli, but there’s nothing to forgive. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if our positions had been reversed.”

  She nodded, stepping ahead of him to catch up with Kira as they made their way to the Ebony Winter’s cargo hold, where Forster’s crew, the remaining members of Rian’s crew, plus a couple of hangers-on were all gathered, either sitting on or leaning against the few crates clamped down to the metal grate floor.

  “Donnelly.” Rian greeted him with a nod. “Kira give you the all clear?”

&n
bsp; “His Mar’keish-Reidar DNA meant half my equipment gave readings I had no idea what to do with,” Kira complained, taking a seat on a crate next to Zahli. He joined them, leaning against the side. Just yesterday, he would have been on edge, defensive about her mentioning his Reidar side aloud in front of anyone, especially the people who’d nabbed him in the first place. But now he knew it wasn’t a curse, it was a blessing. One that made him a unique being.

  “Speaking of Reidar DNA,” Rian replied. “Think you might be able to help us with something?”

  The priestess stepped forward, holding out her arms where a pair of gray-blue bands encircled her wrists.

  “I tried to get them off,” Tannin said from where he stood next to Jase. “But they’re encoded with Reidar DNA.”

  Varean straightened as he gave the thick manacles a once-over and then pressed his thumb into an indent on each. The bands sprang open and clunked to the floor.

  “My deepest gratitude.” Ella inclined her head to him as she moved back, rubbing her wrists. But then she paused, scrutinizing him.

  “You’re—” Her features creased in confusion, and he felt a subtle wave of energy wash over him. “You have the aura of an Arynian. Yet it is so much more than that.”

  “It’s Mar’keish, actually. Add it to the things I’m about to explain.”

  She nodded, glancing around as if only just remembering they had an audience, and then she shifted back to sit with Nyah.

  “So, mongrel man, we’re all here so you can tell us a story,” Forster put in, a hint of cynicism in his voice. Of course, it was possible the marauder always spoke with that note of derision. “You and Rian took some Reidar pharmaceuticals and went on the magical mystery tour?”

  “You are such an ass,” Lianna muttered, but instead of seeming insulted, Forster sent her a wink.

  “Settle down, children,” Rian ordered. “This is going to take some explaining. I was there, and even I don’t really understand it.”