“I thought you were dead.”
Alix nodded. “That’s fair.” He sighed. “Still, it hurt to see you two together. But… I was glad too. In a weird way. Glad you found someone to make you happy.”
Xander snorted. “But did he really? Or was it this?” He stood and began to pace back and forth inside the small space. “I don’t know anymore. Goddammit, I just don’t fucking know!” He looked at the bottle once more and then hurled it against the wall. The glass shattered, and the black liquid splashed across the rock and dripped down to the floor.
Alix stared at him for a long moment. “I’m sorry.” He turned away. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Xander took a deep breath. “No, it’s better that we know. That we figure this out ourselves.” He lifted Alix’s chin with his hand. “I’m glad you told me.”
Alix looked up into his eyes and, in one smooth motion, stood up and kissed him.
Xander’s eyes went wide, and he pushed Alix away. “Hey. That’s not what I meant. I’m with Jameson.”
“Oh God, Xander, I’m sorry.” He backed away and stumbled over the cot. “I’m so sorry. It’s just been so long.”
Xander felt badly for Alix, he really did, but he wasn’t the one who’d left. “I… I need to figure out things between Jameson and me first.”
“No, I get it. I shouldn’t have….” Alix turned to leave. “I’ll give you a few moments.”
Xander grasped his hand and pulled him back. He cupped Alix’s face in his hands, looking him right in the eyes. “I’m glad you’re alive. That you’re here. It just can’t be like it was before.”
Alix grimaced. “I said I get it. I’ll be outside.”
Xander let him go and sat down on the cot, staring at the black liquid puddling on the floor. Quince had a lot to answer for.
Jameson would come back. He always did. Then they could talk this out.
The little cavern shook, and debris rained down outside the entrance. “What the hell was that?”
“Pulse rifle.” Alix’s voice came in from outside. “We’re under attack!”
Xander slipped off his pack and pulled out his own gun. He slipped up next to the doorway. “Where?” he shouted.
“Across the river.”
Xander peeked out the doorway, then pulled his head back just in time to avoid having it fried by the pulse beam that struck the back wall and fused a patch of rock. “They’re not playing around.” It had to be some of Dani’s escaped rangers.
Hopefully someone from camp would notice what was going on, but in the meantime, they were on their own.
Xander crouched down and looked out the doorway again. Alix lay on the ground behind the short rock wall that surrounded the terrace. If he stayed low, he could get there too, and they could figure this thing out.
He lay on the ground and crawled out onto the terrace, flattening his wings as close to the stone-paved terrace as he could. Landers really had an advantage there.
He reached Alix without incident. “You okay?”
Alix shot him a grin. “I bent over to pick up a pebble. I was gonna throw it into the river. That first shot missed me by a hair’s breadth.”
“What do we have?”
“Two rangers, near as I can figure, on the far bank. No one up above us, I think, or we’d be screwed.”
Xander nodded. “Here goes nothing.” He popped above the wall and fired a haphazard shot into the trees on the far side of the Orn.
A pulse blast came in quick response, but Xander had already ducked behind the wall. The angle of it gave him a better sense where their attackers were.
“Just like our old hunting trips, huh?” Alix was grinning ear to ear.
“Not quite. Swamp bears don’t fire back.” He suppressed a grin of his own, not wanting to give Alix the satisfaction. “They’re about ten degrees left of center.”
A shadow slipped by them.
“Oh shit,” Xander yelled, glancing up at the hill above them. “There’s someone up there too.”
Chapter Eleven: Attack
JESSA CURSED herself for an idiot.
She wasn’t supposed to curse, but as the daughter of a Christianist pastor, she’d done a whole lotta things in her life she wasn’t supposed to, and her current situation deserved it more than most.
She sat in the back of a hoversport, the black transport vehicles in vogue for moving rangers and enforcers around this crazy little world. From what she could tell, they were basically a corporate army.
Jessa wished she really did work for GSN. There was a helluva story here. Unfortunately, GSN was a universe away.
When she’d walked into that office, she didn’t know what she’d expected, but certainly not this.
“Welcome, Ms. Althorpe. I’m Lena Preston, CEO of OberCorp.” The woman was tall and thin, her face angular and beautiful in an exotic, cold way. She wore a crisp business suit, and her green eyes were ice-cold. She held up a blade file. “So nice of you to join me. Please have a seat.”
“I… I’m Jessa Smithson. I’m not sure who this Althorpe person is. I’m here from GSN—”
“Have a seat.”
Jessa complied, not sure where this was going, or how Lena knew her real name.
“You know, you did a nice job planting that profile in the grid. It almost fooled me, which is why you were left cooling your heels down in the lobby all day yesterday.” She got up, tapping the file against her hand, and circled around her plas desk. “But there was something about the name. Jessa. Jes-sa. You know how something tickles the back of your mind until it clicks?” She leaned back against her desk, tapping her manicured green nails against the plas.
“Honestly I don’t know—”
“Oh, cut the crap. I know who you are. I even know why you are here.” She set the blade file on the desk and waved her hand over it. A tri-dee of Jameson appeared, suspended in midair above the file. “I went back into my notes about the whole Titania affair, and lo and behold, Jameson had a girlfriend back on Beta Tau. A woman named Jessa.”
“There are a hundred thousand Jessa’s in the Common Worlds, maybe more.”
“But only one of them showed up here.”
It was time to drop the pretense. “All right. Assuming I am this Jessa Althorpe—”
“You are.”
“It’s fiancée, thank you. And what’s the ‘Titania affair’? Where is he? Where’s Jamie?”
The woman nodded. “Good. I like it when people are honest with me.” She sat back and interlaced her fingers over her chest. “I honestly don’t know. Since the shift, we’re running blind without satellite coverage.”
“The shift?”
“Yes. We… that is, Oberon… seems to have been forcefully reunited with its wayward other half.”
“I don’t understand.” What was the woman talking about? Surely they were no longer where they had been, but beyond that….
“When this world was split in half, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago, the other half shifted somewhere else. Now we too, apparently, are in that somewhere else.”
Different constellations. “What does that have to do with Jamie?”
“He’s one of the criminals responsible for it.”
What the hell was she talking about? “Where is he? I want to see him.”
“I don’t know where he is right now. But I do know where he’s going to be.”
“And where’s that?”
“A place called Errian.” She leaned in and took Jessa by the chin. “And you’re going to be my bait to catch him.”
Now she was on a transport, part of a fleet sent to subjugate this place called Errian.
Jamie was on his way there too. Apparently.
She had to figure out a way to warn him. Despite what Lena Preston thought, Jessa was no one’s damsel in distress.
THE EYELET-SHAPED island between the two arms of the Orn grew larger and larger as the wind at this lower elevation rushed past his wings,
warming him up.
He’d decided. He would talk it out with Xander. It was what he should have done right away, but he found he was still prone to running when things became difficult. He needed to break that pattern, once and for all.
There was a flash of light below, followed by a rumble.
What the hell?
Then another.
Pulse rifle discharge. Someone was attacking the waystation.
Two more blasts, this time from the terrace. That would be Xander and Alix?
Jameson had the advantage. No one was expecting him. He could slip off to camp, bring reinforcements, and overwhelm their attackers.
Then he drew close enough to see the ranger crawling across the rocky outcrop that was the backbone of the island, toward the waystation. Xander and Alix were probably focused on the assailants across the Orn. If Jameson didn’t take action now, they might both be dead with pulse bolts through the back by the time he returned with help.
He spread his wings and slowed his fall, turning toward the far bank of the river. If he planned it right, he’d be able to sweep the man off the heights from behind, but he’d be leaving himself open to pulse rifle fire from the others. Cross that bridge.
The ranger had just reached the edge of the plateau and was aiming his rifle when Jameson swept up behind him, skimming the ground like a hawk. He’d gained better control over his golden wings in the past two weeks, and he smiled with grim pleasure as he closed on his prey.
The man must have heard something or seen his shadow, because he twisted around at the last second, but it wasn’t enough to save him.
Jameson grabbed him by his black shirt and threw him over the edge, soaring back up into the sky as the man’s body plummeted to the ground below. He waited for a bolt of pulse fire to take him from the far bank.
XANDER POINTED. “It’s Jameson!”
Someone screamed, and a body dressed in the black of the enforcers hit the ground in front of them with a sickening thud.
“We have to give him cover!” Alix shouted. He popped up and started laying down fire toward their attackers’ position in the forest.
Xander joined him, and a broad swath of vegetation blew to blackened bits, showering the waters of the Orn with debris.
The ruckus must have captured the attention of someone at the campsite, because soon the sky was swarming with skythane.
Their allies fired a few more shots before their attackers were dispatched. None among the skythane were injured. A great cheer went up as the last man was killed.
Xander was breathing heavily, finding it hard to believe he was still alive. He stood and surveyed the carnage. The riverbank would recover, but the dead men… their families would mourn them when they didn’t come home.
He turned to look at the man whom Jameson had killed.
His neck was broken, twisted at an odd angle, his eyes open and staring at the sky. A puddle of blood oozed from underneath his chest.
Jameson alighted next to them. He glanced at the man’s body and then turned away, looking green around the edges. “Are you two okay?” he asked Xander. “I saw him about to shoot you, and I just acted.” He threw his arms around Xander.
Xander hugged him back, but with considerably less enthusiasm. “Yeah, we’re okay. Thanks for taking him out.”
Jameson seemed to sense the change. He pulled back, holding on to Xander’s shoulders, and looked him in the eye. “We should talk.”
Xander nodded. “Alix, would you mind giving us a little privacy?”
He expected his ex to balk.
“Of course. I’ll head back to camp and let them know what happened here. I’ll see you there?”
Xander nodded. “We’ll follow you shortly.”
Alix strapped on his bi-wings and then leapt off the wall of the terrace, swooping across the river toward camp.
“Let’s carry the body inside. No point making it easier on Dani and her crew if they come to see what happened.”
Jameson nodded, and they hustled the man’s body into the waystation. Xander did a quick check of the man’s pockets, but there was nothing of interest. He’d probably carried a pack and left it behind somewhere.
The pulse rifle had been bent on impact and was useless. Fortunately, he had the one he’d brought with him from Gaelan.
Jameson stared at the black stain on the wall, then looked at Xander with a frown. “Pith?”
Xander nodded. “I was angry. I still am.” He looked at Jameson. The man still looked the same. Xander still felt the surge of love when their eyes met. It was all tainted. “How can I know?”
Jameson held his gaze. “I can’t tell you that. All I can say is that I felt something—a spark, a connection—before we set off on this crazy adventure. The first time I met you.”
“I felt it too.” Xander was the first to look away. “It was just lust. At first, anyhow. Anything after that is suspect.”
Jameson sighed. “I still feel it.”
Xander nodded. “I do too. But I need some time.” Time to sort out what was real from what had been foisted upon them by Quince’s well-intentioned but ultimately destructive actions. “You’ve used pith before?”
“Not myself. With clients.”
“How long does it take for the effects to wear off?”
“I don’t know. It varies with the potency and purity of the drug. How often it was administered. At what dosage.”
Xander forced the words out, as if his heart wasn’t breaking. “If you had to guess. How long… until I know if what I feel is real?”
Jameson shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Pith changes you, physiologically, and we don’t know when Quince stopped dosing us. Or if she even did.”
“You have a better explanation for this?” He held up his hand. Part of him wanted to chop off his offending fingers.
The hell of it was he could see how much this was hurting Jameson, and it was killing him too.
Jameson’s shoulders sagged. “No. I don’t. I wish I did.” He looked out the doorway at the evening light. “We should get back to camp. I want to get an early start tomorrow to test this thing out.” He held up the key.
“Do you know how it works?”
Jameson shook his head. “Not yet. Sort of—I mean, I saw it, but I don’t know exactly how they did it? I’ll have to dive into the memories again for that.”
Xander frowned. “That seems dangerous.”
“Maybe so. But I need to get to Errian to see what’s happening there.”
“We’ll go together. That much I can do.”
Jameson held out his hand, palm out. “Sorry, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should take some time, figure out how you really feel.”
Ouch. “I… I suppose you’re right.”
“Besides, you need to be here for your people. Bring them with you to Errian, like we planned.” Jameson’s voice softened. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold the waygate open, in any case. It’s best if I find out what’s going on there first.”
Xander didn’t care for that idea. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
“You’re right. I’ll ask Alix to go with me. He knows OberCorp better than any of us. And he might be able to help me control these memories better.”
And it will keep him away from me. Xander took Jameson’s hand. “Are the memories bad right now?”
Jameson flinched. Just a little, but Xander felt it. “Not at the moment, but they’re always there.”
“Take Venin too. He knows more about this world than you or I.” Xander wondered again why the memories were so much more forceful in Jameson’s head than in his own. Maybe because he was new to his skythane heritage? “Come on. Let’s head back to camp. We should get settled if you want to get started early tomorrow.”
Jameson nodded. He got up and strode out of the room, pausing at the doorway. “I hope you decide that there’s more than just pith between us.” Then he was out the door and up into the air
.
Xander gave him a moment before following, wondering how things had fallen apart so quickly. “So do I.”
QUINCE STARED at her lover’s sleep sack, silver in the moonlight reflected off the lake. It was past midnight. The forest was quiet save for the occasional mournful call of a white-tailed whirill. The night breeze rustled through the trees, flipping the purple leaves back and forth. In the darkness, they looked pitch-black.
There was a sharp crack in the forest.
Robyn looked back at her and smiled.
A man dressed all in black approached the lakeside. His face was darkened with mud so that only his eyes shone white in the shadows of the forest. He carried a pulse rifle. Behind him, another man followed in his footsteps.
They came toward the camp in silence. Only the one sound had given them away.
When they were about two meters away, they raised their pulse rifles and fired shots directly into the sleep sacks.
Quince dropped off the branch where she’d perched above the camp, swooping down on one of the men like a deathhawk.
Robyn dropped from her own tree with deadly grace, even without her wings, and brought the second man down as a cloud of foam exploded from their sleep sacks.
Quince tried to get a good grasp around the man’s neck, but he twisted out of her hold and pulled her off balance to fall on top of him.
The ranger was quick. She had to give him that.
Behind her, Robyn fought with the second attacker.
Quince’s assailant rolled out of the way and onto his feet, but his rifle had flown out of his hands when she first jumped him.
They circled each other warily as the stuffing from their sleep sacks began to float back down to the ground all around them like snow.
Quince’s pulse wound ached. She stretched her wing to try to alleviate some of the pain.
“Fucking wing men,” the man spat.
“Fucking landers,” she shot back.
“When OberCorp is done with this place, you’ll all be working in the mines.” He pulled a knife from his belt.
There was a sharp snap behind her, and then silence. She didn’t dare look back. “We threw you out of Gaelan. You’re the ones who should be afraid of us.”
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