by J. J. Green
The shuttle bay hatch appeared in the passageway ahead of her. She’d managed to reach it without encountering anyone else. Her co-conspirators had kept her path empty.
The hatch opened at her approach. No problems with a security lockout.
Wonderful.
Finding a pilot to take her to Earth had been nearly impossible, unsurprisingly given what had happened to the last one. Eventually, an older man who had worked for her for years had agreed. She had yet to think of a worthy reward for him when they reached their destination, but it would be something highly valuable, plus a sizable pension.
The pilot waited outside the shuttlecraft as instructed. She wasn’t going to take the same risk as before. When she and Perran were ready, he would step inside and start the engines. Then she would fly to freedom.
She climbed aboard and put Perran down in the nearest seat, quickly fastening his seat belt. She checked the pilot’s cabin. It was empty.
“It’s safe,” she called out to him before taking a seat herself.
As she strapped in, she heard the pilot’s door close. A soft rumble coursed through the vessel as the engines fired.
Just another couple of minutes. She could hardly believe she was nearly free.
The shuttle lifted and hung in midair for a second, then she felt gentle pressure as it moved forward. The bay bulkheads passed by on each side. Black space appeared, speckled with the hard, silver points of stars.
She’d done it. They were away. Unless Morgan realized she’d escaped in the next hour or so, she would find it hard to come after her. And would she want to risk a battle with Perran aboard the shuttle? Kala didn’t think so. Perran was the last of her descendants. She wouldn’t want to risk hurting him.
Kala relaxed and looked at her sleeping son. He would get over not seeing Morgan anymore. He’d only known her a few months. And she would make sure to spoil him to help him forget.
She’d decided to return to the castle she’d lived at before her most recent habitation. Morgan had never been there. She’d never met any of the staff and so hadn’t had the opportunity to influence them. It was conceivable that she would try to raise an army to attack her, but outside of Kala’s immediate retinue, hardly anyone in the EAC had seen her. She had no reputation, no influence other than over people in her immediate vicinity, and little experience of the world. She might be hard to kill—Kala hadn’t given up on her plan to discover Morgan’s enemy—but that didn’t mean she was to be feared forever. She might only continue as an impotent irritation, a gnat to be swatted away when she got too close.
Kala closed her eyes as her tension eased some more. She’d been on edge for weeks. Telling the doctor she was unable to sleep had been no lie. She breathed deeply and focused on the smooth motion of the shuttle as it carried her away from her deadly foe.
A short time later, she opened her eyes again.
On darkness.
She jerked to full awareness, her eyes stretching wide.
Why was it dark?
In her panic, she grabbed her armrests, but there was nothing for her to hold. Her seat had disappeared too. She was floating without support in a void.
“Pilot!”
“Pilot, answer me!”
Silence.
“Perran! Perran! Where are you?”
She reached out but her hands met nothing. Her feet did the same.
Where was she? Where had the shuttle gone? Where was Perran?
Was she dreaming?
An icy claw of fear clutching her heart, she prayed it was only a nightmare, that she would wake up aboard the Belladonna, her escape plan still in place.
On the edge of her hearing, she heard a soft, familiar chuckle.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Taylan watched Merlin and Arthur disappear into the night. When she couldn’t see them anymore, she said to Wright, “I never thought he would agree to it.”
“Merlin? He badly wants to carry out his plan, for some reason. I’m not sure why. Ooops.” He gave her a sheepish look.
“It’s okay. I’d already figured out this was all his idea. I didn’t think you liked me so much you would trek for days through the wilds of West BI, enemy territory, just to find me.”
Now he looked a little hurt. “What makes you think I don’t like you? I wasn’t that bad a CO to you, was I?”
“No, that isn’t what I meant. You have to admit, this is excessive. There has to be a thousand other Marines who would be just as good as me at trying to take out the Dwyr.”
“Not a thousand. A hundred, maybe. Ten at least.”
She smiled, then winced and raised her hand to the side of her face.
“I wish you’d let Merlin treat you before he left.”
She shook her head, and then winced again. “I wish I would stop doing that.”
“You must be in a lot of pain. Hey, I forgot. I brought along some meds.” He fished in his pack and handed her a strip of blisters that was nearly empty.
“But you’ve been using these,” she said. “You must need them. I can’t take them.”
“I don’t need them as much as you do. Go on, please. It would make me feel better.”
Her burns did hurt like a bitch, keeping her awake at night and making every movement painful. She popped one of the pills and swallowed it with a sip of water.
“No luck with your kids?” he asked quietly.
About to shake her head again, she remembered just in time. “No.”
There was so much more she could have told him on that front, about spying on the orphanage and getting shot, and her guess that Patrin and Kayla might have been taken in by a Crusader couple. But she didn’t think she could do it. “No luck,” was all she could manage.
He got the hint and didn’t press her to tell him more. “How long do you think it’ll be before Arthur and Merlin come back?”
“Uhh, about a day, day and a half.” She’d set out at the same time as the brothers, but they were moving much slower than her due to carrying Marc on a stretcher.
It had been an enormous relief when Merlin had agreed to heal Marc in return for her participation in the mission. The guilt of his injuries had weighed heavy on her, even though he’d insisted on helping her remove the incendiaries. If she hadn’t been at the festival and objected to the sabotage, he wouldn’t have got hurt. He’d been fortunate to survive the horrible burns from the device going off in his hands. He could easily have died and she would have had to live with the fact for the rest of her days. She had plenty of regrets already without adding another to the list.
“It looks like we have quite a wait ahead of us,” said Wright. “Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something? I could start a fire if you’re cold, too. I think it’ll be safe out here.”
Now that the meds were taking effect, she had felt her appetite begin to return. “I have lots of food.” She hadn’t touched her supplies since leaving Ynys Mon. “You should have some of mine. And a fire would be great.”
As the major went to gather wood, she took out some of the parcels the Crusaders had given her and opened them. She found strips of preserved meat, dried fruit, savory biscuits, some kind of confectionery, and nuts in their shells. The people had been so kind and generous, the memory of them filling her pack before she set off brought tears to her eyes.
It had been so odd. They hadn’t seemed to guess she and Marc might have had something to do with the fires that had simultaneously broken out at the festival site. Marc being a victim of one of the fires probably had something to do with that. They hadn’t appeared to recognize the deactivated incendiaries in her pack, perhaps unremarkably if anyone who saw them had no military experience.
Retrieving the majority of the devices had meant the few fires that started up were dealt with before things got out of control. She and Marc had prevented a terrible disaster, so that was something to be grateful for. But Marc had suffered horribly and she’d lost Meilyr and Madog’s friendship forever. Not Medwyn
’s. He’d never liked her anyway. Regarding the other two, if they’d felt animosity toward her because she’d upset their plans, involving their brother so he was left severely burned had put the seal on it. She would never be able to look either of them in the eyes again.
Wright walked into the campsite and dropped a bundle of sticks. “There’s plenty of wood about. We should have enough to keep a fire going all night.” With that, he set off to find some more. When he returned and added to the bundle, he started a small fire.
“Here,” she said, “have one of these.” She handed him a candy and popped one in her own mouth too. “What do you think it is?”
He chewed. “No idea. Is it a West BI specialty?”
“No, I got it from a Crusader.”
“You’re kidding?! How come?”
“Sit down. I’ll tell you what happened at the festival.”
When he was sitting next to her, she asked, “What do I call you now?”
“Huh?”
“Unless you still want me to call you Major Wright.”
“Oh, T.J. will do.”
“T.J. That’s it. That’s what Arthur calls you. What do the initials stand for?”
“Nothing very interesting.”
“Don’t worry, you can tell me. Is it something embarrassing?”
“No.”
It was something embarrassing.
“You were going to explain what happened at the festival,” said Wright.
“Smooth change of subject there,” Taylan replied. “I like it.” She took another piece of candy out of the packet. “Okay, where do I start?”
She told him about the four brothers, Angharad’s sons, and their scheme to ruin the Crusader celebration. She told him about her realization, and Marc, and everything that had happened. Some parts she’d only found out later, like the fact that when the time came to trigger the incendiaries, Meilyr and Medwyn had argued, and then fought. Meilyr had wanted to abandon the plan, guessing she and Marc were in danger, while Medwyn had wanted to go ahead with it anyway.
Medwyn had managed to grab the remote detonator and press it.
The final part, after Crusaders had extinguished the flames on her and Marc, was hazy. She’d been too shocked and agonized to register much.
The people had cared for them. Maybe it had been due to Marc’s earlier conversation with the Crusader outside the admissions tent, they’d been identified as part of the crowd. She really didn’t know. But people had gently cleaned the sticky oil from their burned skin, dressed their wounds, and given them clothes to replace their ruined ones.
Somewhere along the way, the brothers must have noticed what was going on and had claimed Marc as their own. She’d also left the Crusaders soon after, using her damaged airways as an excuse to not speak.
All in all, despite everything that had happened, she was glad she’d done what she had. She only wished she’d managed to persuade Marc to stay away.
She finished her story, and silence fell. The major seemed reluctant to comment on her experiences with the Crusaders.
“I’d prefer to call you Wright, if that’s okay.”
“You can call me whatever you like. You should bed down for the night. It can’t have been easy walking for days with those wounds. Keep the meds. I can do without them. But when Merlin gets back, I want you to let him heal you.”
She gave a shiver. “I hate the idea of that creepy alien touching me.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. Who wouldn’t? But we have a long journey to make to reach the Gallant, and you won’t be going far or fast in that condition.”
She yawned. “Yes, sir.”
“A compliant Marine. That’s what I like.”
“Hey, who said anything about re-enlisting?”
“Just joking. Besides, are you sure the Alliance wants you back?”
“Huh! They’d be lucky to have me.”
“They would, and that isn’t a joke.”
She unrolled her sleeping bag, took off her jacket, and climbed inside, her handmade Crusader clothes feeling awkward and bulky, especially now the major’s painkillers were working.
As she settled down, the warmth and happiness she’d felt since encountering Wright began to fade. Patrin and Kayla remained lost and she could never return to the West BI Resistance. If it hadn’t been for the mission Merlin had dreamt up, she would have been entirely alone and friendless in a land ruled by someone who wanted her dead.
In truth, she’d had little choice about accepting Wright’s proposal.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was during the journey back to the Gallant Wright decided to tell Ellis the information Merlin had revealed. She was wearing one of the suits stowed aboard the dropship in case of emergencies, which meant he could open a one-to-one comm with her and Merlin and Arthur wouldn’t overhear.
He knew she would believe him. Her opinion of him hadn’t been colored by his psych assessment report, as every senior Marine officer’s would be from now on. Also, he had a feeling she would have believed him anyway, no matter what any shrink said. She suspected Merlin just as much as he did, and a new level of trust had developed between them.
“So, there are extra-terrestrial powers interfering in Earth affairs,” he concluded, “if you believe him.”
“Whoa.” She took a moment to process, then said, “Makes sense. Or, it’s some kind of explanation for what’s going on. What he’s doing here, I mean. Why he’s so invested he returned after thousands of years when Arthur woke up. That’s a big commitment, right?”
“Who knows what’s a big commitment in his terms? He told me something else that was interesting. I asked him about the alien who accompanies the Dwyr. I said, why aren’t we trying to kill her? He replied it would be like trying to kill a rock.”
“A rock? She didn’t look anything like a rock when I saw her. She did the cloud thing, like he does.”
“I suppose it was his way of saying she couldn’t be killed. I don’t know. It was the usual Merlin obfuscation.”
“Do you think the Dwyr’s alien is controlling her the way Merlin controls Arthur?” Taylan asked.
“I thought about it, but I’ve never read any reports about her having a sidekick. She always seemed to be acting alone.”
“Maybe her alien returned to Earth the same time as Merlin. Maybe that’s who snatched the Fearless!”
“Yeah,” Wright agreed, “you could be right. But why wouldn’t he tell us? Why allow suspicion to fall on him?”
“Because he’s an asshole who enjoys playing with us.”
“You’re spot on there.”
PREDICTABLY, COLBOURN demanded they all reported to her office the moment they set foot on the Gallant. Wright led the way, his knee bothering him again. He hoped the higher-ups would allow them some time to recuperate before attempting the assault on the Belladonna.
When they arrived, Lieutenant-General Carol was there too. He and the brigadier were standing behind her desk, apparently presenting a united front about something.
“Excellent work, Major,” said Carol.
“Thank you, sir.”
“No, thank you for bringing Corporal Ellis back into the fold.”
“Corporal?” said Taylan. “No, I was discharged. I’m just plain Ellis now.”
Colbourn coughed. “As I explained when I contacted you a few weeks ago, Major Wright made an error. You are not discharged. Lieutenant-General Carol and I thought we should make that clear so there’s no misunderstanding. You still have—”
“No, I’m not a Royal Marine! I only agreed to come back and take part in this mission because Wright asked me. I’m doing you a favor. I am not working for you guys anymore!” She stared at Wright accusingly.
“No one told me about this,” he said to Colbourn and Carol.
Of course they hadn’t told him. He wouldn’t have agreed to find her and persuade her to come back if he’d known what they had planned. They probably wanted to control her
in the way they couldn’t control Arthur or Merlin. They probably saw her as a valuable asset. But they were skating on thin ice. Neither of them understood how much Ellis hated being a Marine.
“The information wasn’t relevant at the time,” Carol said. “But I thought you understood the discharge you gave was invalid. Your rank doesn’t confer the necessary authority. I’m surprised you were unaware of that.”
“This is complete rubbish!” Ellis exclaimed. “Fine! I won’t do the mission. What are you gonna do? Make me?”
“If you refuse a direct order,” Colbourn warned, “you’ll be court-martialed.”
“Fine. Put me in the brig. I could do with a rest, to be honest. I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Do not use that language in front of a senior officer!” barked the brigadier.
“Taylan,” Wright interjected, “one of the outcomes of a court martial is execution.”
“They could murder me? How bloody dumb is that? Yeah, kill your own personnel. Fantastic idea. It’s not surprising the Alliance is barely holding its own in the war when it has morons like you two running it.”
Merlin chuckled.
Colbourn was pale with anger. “You will be silent!”
“Brigadier,” said Carol, “if I could say something?” He turned to Ellis. “What do you say we wind back the last few minutes and start again? I can see you feel strongly about the situation. I’ll go so far as to say perhaps we underestimated just how strongly you would feel. It’s an easy mistake to make when we’re operating with insufficient information.” He glanced at Wright.
Great. Carol expected him to shoulder the blame for Ellis’s justified outrage.
“Our problem is,” the lieutenant-general continued, “we need you and the major here to represent the Alliance in this mission.”
“Why?” asked Ellis. “Why can’t I be...whatever you count them as.” She gestured at Arthur and Merlin.
“Um, that’s somewhat difficult to explain,” Carol replied. “Suffice to say, at least fifty percent of the core team responsible for the Dwyr’s assassination should belong to the Alliance.”