The Key

by Brian Fisher

  Chapter 40

  T'Sula picked herself up, and looked down the darkened corridor. Lights began to slowly flicker back to life, again showing her the spartan, gray interior of the little ship. She had no idea what had happened, why she had been thrown against the bulkhead, but figured that if she needed to know, Kamira or Corin would tell her. Either way, she was expected on the bridge.

  T'Sula stepped over to the door that opened onto the bridge. She didn't know exactly what to expect on the other side, other than the fact that Corin was in there, waiting for her. The man infuriated her like no one else could, but she felt inexplicably drawn to him also. A touch of anxiety threatened to overtake her, just as it did every time that she knew there was going to be a confrontation. If she wasn't careful, by keeping her temper contained, there was definitely going to be a confrontation.

  It took T'Sula a moment to focus and calm her nerves. In the deep recesses of her mind, apart from the anxiety and fears, she wondered about Kamira. Where was she? Not knowing burned at T’Sula’s heart, prompting her to take some sort of action.

  T'Sula knew that thinking about her cousin right then, would only hurt her mission, her ability to act freely and unencumbered by emotion or active thought. She knew from experience that she could probably find Kam after dealing with Corin, so she reluctantly pushed her out of her mind.

  T'Sula held her breath as she activated the pressure plate and watched as the door slid open. She took in every detail in an instant. Both Kamira and Corin were present, but there was absolutely no sign of the giant panther. The bridge was moderately small, but functional. The decor was as she expected, a basic metallic gray with the only highlights being the lighted computer terminals. Corin Dante sat in the commanding position of the Captain's chair, with all of the subordinate positions arrayed in front of him. T'Sula was quietly impressed. It was a very efficient design.

  Seated at the engineering station was her cousin, actively pouring through readouts. Sweat beaded across Kamira's brow, and began to run down her cheeks. She held a look of concentration on her face that T'Sula had rarely seen outside of dire circumstances. Kamira looked tired and bruised, but in all she was unharmed and healthy.

  "Corin, we need to set down now. The Hyper-drive Synchronization Unit went out. That's why we had to drop out of hyperspace. If we don't get the engines synchronized, the harmonic imbalance will rip us apart." T'Sula heard the words come from Kamira, but could not believe her eyes or ears. "I'm not sure that I can fix this out here."

  "I'm working on it." Corin Dante replied crisply to the engineer. His own eyes were riveted to the display of star charts floating in front of him.

  T'Sula stood anchored in place by shock. Kamira was working with the enemy. Her own blood had betrayed her. Was Kamira now the enemy also, or was she compromised in some way? Why would Kam cooperate with this man? No, there had to be a reason behind Kamira's actions. T'Sula simply had no idea what those reasons were.

  "Welcome Commander. I hope that you found the accommodations satisfactory." the sound of Corin's voice brought T'Sula back to the present. "If you would please find a seat and strap in, without trying to maim me of course, it would be appreciated." The sincerity in his tone surprised T'Sula. She tried, but could find no malice in his voice or actions.

  "Where's your cat?" T'Sula asked as she walked over to the station by Kamira and sat down. T'Sula sank back into the comfortably worn seat, strapped in, and quietly listened to what was going on around her. She kept her eyes open as well as her ears, hoping to make sense of the new circumstances. Questions came quickly, with no answers readily available. She would simply have to wait.

  "Brutus is fine. Don't worry about him." Corin sighed. "Kam, once we set down, how long will it take you to repair the damage?" His clear voice cut neatly through the low din of the starship's bridge.

  "Well, first I'll have to see just how bad the damage is." Kamira sighed as she looked up from her readouts. "From what I can tell from here, it's pretty extensive. It'll probably take at least a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks. It's hard to tell."

  "What's wrong?" T'Sula asked Kam as quietly as she could manage.

  "We took a lot of damage when Olcai exploded. There are a number of stress fractures in the superstructure, which is throwing us way out of trim, a lot of hull damage, and some of the power couplings over loaded. It also looks like a back-feed loop overloaded the synchronizers." Kamira looked directly at T'Sula. "Then there's the damage that you caused."

  "Me?" T'Sula recoiled into herself. "What kind of damage did I do?"

  "One more of your kicks, and you would have broken through that forcefield." Kamira frowned. "You overloaded a few of the power couplings on the forcefield generator."

  "What did you expect me to do? Sit back and be a good prisoner?" T'Sula nearly let her temper get the best of her. She didn't know why Kamira was responding the way she was. She did not want to fight with her, especially in front of Corin.

  "Well, you could always just say 'Thank you for saving my life.' and ‘No I'm not going to try to kill you, or destroy your ship.' Sometimes, thinking before you act is a good thing!" Kam's glare burned into her cousin, threatening to ignite her into an inferno of blind rage. "You owe Corin an apology."

  "You're attacking me? Apologize? For what?" T'Sula roared. Her tenuous grasp on her temper slipped away. "You're the one that's helping the man who not only imprisoned me, but launched Major Narja into space." T'Sula unstrapped and stood up, glowering at Kamira. "Not to mention, the last time I saw you was before we crashed that air car. You left me for dead! I woke up to Nom trying to kill me!" T'Sula screamed at her cousin. "You left me for dead!"

  "What was I supposed to do T'Sula? There was an invasion going on! I thought that you were dead! I had to save my own life!" Kamira matched T'Sula in volume and tone. Her hands began to tremble and tears welled up in her eyes. "I was actually happy that you were alive..."

  "Girls, as much as I don't want to be here for this..." Corin began, completely unsure of what to do. He had seen women fight before, but did not want to see these two fight each other. Not when there were Ta'Reeth and the Regiment to fight instead.

  "Shut up!" T'Sula and Kamira screamed at Corin in unison. Kamira unstrapped and stood. In an instant, the two women were barely centimeters apart, glaring at each other. Each clenched their fists, waiting for the other to flinch.

  "You left me for dead Kam." T'Sula whispered, and backed down, not willing to hurt her only living relative.

  "I didn't have any choice T'Sula." the tears started to flow down Kamira's cheeks. "You were dead. I had to keep that, that thing away from them. You told me to. I thought that you were dead." Kamira shrank away from her cousin, the fight no longer in her. "How did you survive?"

  "I barely survived, thanks to Nom." T'Sula tried to hide her revulsion, but failed.

  "Who's this Nom guy?" Corin asked, glancing up from his star charts.

  "He's the one that was responsible for destroying Olcai." T'Sula sighed, the memory of her time with Nom still fresh in her mind.

  "I thought that the Ta'Reeth destroyed Olcai." Kamira ventured.

  "Nom was a Ta'Reeth agent." T'Sula tried to rub the strain out of her eyes. "I've actually fought him, and killed him a couple of times now."

  "You killed him a couple of times?" Corin couldn't help but stare, mouth agape, at T'Sula. "You can't be serious. Dead is dead. There's no coming back from it."

  "Actually, I am serious. It seems that the Ta'Reeth have found a way to allow their puppets to regenerate like they do." T'Sula looked squarely at Corin for the first time since stepping onto the bridge. "The first time I killed him, I dropped him out of a starship that was a couple hundred meters in the air. That was on Pharnex Six." She kept her gaze on Corin, studying him as she spoke. "I also killed him about two hours before Olcai exploded."

  "How did you kill him this time?" Corin smirked. He had heard about the Ta'Reeth being able to heal their wo
unds faster than anything else could possibly do, but being able to give that ability to someone else? It didn't seem possible.

  "Snapped his neck." T'Sula said dismissively. "He put up a fight, like the last time. We're all better off with him dead."

  "So you say. You think everybody would be better off if I were dead." Corin didn't know why he was sparring with T'Sula over this. Nom meant absolutely nothing to him anyway. He finally realized that if T'Sula didn't want to kill him, he'd have thought that she was extremely attractive when she was angry. As long as she wasn't angry with him anyway.

  "Look, I don't know much about you, but I do know what he was like." T'Sula sat back down in her seat. "On Pharnex, he made a deal with the Ta'Reeth. Sold out the entire colony to them. After that, he killed his wife, set his house on fire, left his infant daughter in the house to burn, and assisted in the invasion of the colony. That's not even covering what he did to me, and to Olcai, so yeah, I'd say he deserved to die. Wouldn't you?"

  "Well, when you put it that way, sure, I guess so." Corin forced himself not to look at T'Sula. She was the single most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Unfortunately, he knew that she wanted to kill him.

  "Alright, now that we're done with that, let's get this hunk of crap on the ground so that I can fix it. Then we can get back to Redemption." Kamira interjected, leaving no room for any argument.

  Corin simply turned back to his charts, not telling the two women that his itinerary did not coincide with their plans. Captain McWilliams and Redemption would certainly interfere with what he needed to do.

  "Here, I found one." Corin said, pulling up a star chart on the navigation screens. "This little planet should be just fine for what we need."

  T'Sula and Kamira both studied the chart. It was indeed a small planet, almost a planetoid. At least it had a breathable atmosphere and plenty of natural resources. From the readings on the chart, it was uninhabited, and therefore, theoretically safe.

  "And Kam, it's not that far away." Corin allowed himself half of a smile. He had his prize, and someone to repair his ship. Sometimes things worked out in his favor. Now he just had to wait.