strongholdrising

by Lisanne Norman

“No one would want me to keep it because of that,” she said morosely. “More likely having it’ll be another worry to add to the ones they already have.”

  “A cub that is wanted for its own sake is a blessing from Ghyakulla for us all, Kitra,” said Ghyan, sitting back. “It has to be your choice, child.”

  the Couana, the same day

  He had tried to integrate with the others on the ship, but each day just brought him fresh reminders of how much he’d relied on his Talent for everything. Conversations were fraught with episodes of him reading the body language of those around him wrongly, especially Dzaou. He wasn’t sure if it was paranoia on his part, but it seemed that male was determined to find fault with everything he said and did. It was as if his presence was a Challenge to him. His thoughts kept returning to Carrie and Kaid, wishing that he’d traveled on the Hkariyash, then he remembered their Link days and was glad he was on the Couana. On top of all this, he could feel T’Chebbi’s eyes on him all the time.

  He took to staying in his room and sleeping during the day periods, venturing out into the common lounge only at night when he thought the others were sleeping.

  He was sitting at one of the entertainment units when he heard the door opening. Since his captivity, his hearing had grown more acute, and he recognized T’Chebbi’s footfall even on the carpeted floor before he smelled her scent.

  “Is bad for you to isolate yourself like this,” she said, coming round to sit at the unit beside his.

  “Are you a counselor now, T’Chebbi?” he asked, continuing to read the latest news sheet from Shola.

  “I helped Kaid when he went to Stronghold after his time as Ghezu’s captive,” she said quietly. “No need for you to go through this alone. He didn’t. Had me, then you to help him.”

  “I’m not Kaid. I don’t want company or help. I want to be left alone,” he said, voice deepening with the beginnings of anger that he tried to suppress.

  “Know that. But are similarities. You both bone-headed about it.”

  Surprised, he glanced at her.

  “Look, you lost your Link to Carrie, but you not lost her. You’re the one pushed her away.”

  “You know why I did,” he said, turning back to his monitor screen. “I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Need to. Carrie loves you, so does Kaid. He’s your sword-brother and she’s your life-mate! You’re a Triad. Can’t turn your back on them.”

  “You know nothing about it,” he said, feeling the warning tingle at the base of his neck as his temper started to flare. “Nothing about how I feel.”

  “How do you feel then?” she asked after a moment’s silence.

  “Irritated by your persistent questions,” he growled, trying to remember the litanies, anything to push back the anger before it took hold of him. “Just leave me alone, T’Chebbi.”

  “Are you jealous of Kaid? He had no option. If they hadn’t paired, they’d both have died— so would you.”

  “I know that, dammit!” His hands clenched on the table, claws cutting into his palms. “I’m glad he did, glad he was there, was able to do it, but it should have been me! I’m her Leska, the one who should have protected her, stopped J’koshuk from raping her! It was my fault!” Pain began to flicker up and down his spine as he fought for self-control.

  “You couldn’t have stopped him,” she said gently, reaching out to touch his arm.

  He turned to look at her, eyes blazing with anger. “I told J’koshuk about Carrie,” he said slowly, trying to push back the burning pain, prevent it from crippling him, and her from seeing it. “Kaid didn’t. He kept the codes of the estate from Ghezu. I failed. He didn’t.”

  “You rescued him. If you hadn’t arrived…”

  “He’d have succeeded in making Ghezu kill him!” he snarled, pushing himself up from his chair. “I see my failure every time I look at her! I remember her fear! I felt it, for Vartra’s sake, T’Chebbi!” And later paired with one of them, he thought with despair. “I can’t forgive myself for that, even if she can.”

  “You can, if you let yourself. If not, then telepath medics can erase it.”

  He looked at her contemptuously. “You think I want that?”

  “You’d forget it happened. If don’t want that, then come to terms with it,” she countered. “You think they’re happy with what happened? That Kaid wanted to step into your place and share a cub with her because he had no option? That causes troubles between them! You cutting yourself off makes it worse for all of you!”

  “I can’t help that! It would be worse if I were there! They have Link days— I’ll never have them again! They have each other— they love each other! I saw them, T’Chebbi! Saw them together when they Linked! J’koshuk made me watch!”

  Agony coursed through him now. He lashed out at the monitor, hoping to dissipate his anger with a different pain. His fist contacted, smashing the screen which promptly imploded with a loud bang, showering him with shards. Pain lanced through his hand as he staggered back. But it had worked, the anger was gone leaving only the agony in his hand.

  “You’re bleeding,” said T’Chebbi calmly, getting up. “Come with me, I’ll dress it.”

  “I’m all right. Leave me alone,” he said shakily, cradling his hand against his chest. He backed off, then turned and headed for the door, shocked by the violence of what he’d done.

  *

  His head was throbbing as badly as his hand when he tried to examine it. He was still bleeding copiously, and dabbing futilely at the gash with his towel did nothing except make him wince in pain. Giving up, he wrapped the towel tightly round it. T’Chebbi was right. His continued presence was only causing Carrie and Kaid problems. It would have been better for all concerned had he not survived.

  Returning to the main room from the bathing room, he pulled out a small bottle of spirits from the cupboard in his night table. Brynne had given it to him. It was one of several the Human had brought back from the bar at Haven and he’d passed them out their first night on the Couana in an effort to lighten the mood. He’d drunk some to be sociable, but there was still plenty left. Sitting down, he fished in his pocket, pulling out the tablets he kept there. The medikits on the Couana were kept locked in the sickbay, so he was glad he’d had the foresight to take analgesics and sleeping tablets from the one in their room at Haven when he’d had the chance. Ten still remained. He couldn’t sleep without them; his dreams were full of replays of his time on the Kz’adul with J’koshuk.

  He washed them down one at a time with the alcohol, knowing that he was doing the right thing. With him dead by his own hand, there’d be no guilt for them. He couldn’t go on like this anyway, living with the constant pain caused by the implant whenever he felt anger, living without Carrie and their Link. It was a shadow, a travesty of the life they’d shared.

  J’koshuk had won in the end, he thought, cradling his hand as he lay back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the welcoming warmth and drowsiness the pills would bring.

  Shola, Valsgarth Estate, the same day

  “Well, Ghyan’s not usually wrong, cub, so let’s see what those blood tests show, shall we?”

  Kitra nodded, clutching her sister’s hand tightly as she watched Vanna go over to the sampling unit.

  Vanna sighed inwardly. She should be used to it by now. Granted none of the mixed Leskas were as young as Kitra, and only one or two of the gene-altered Sholan pairs were, but usually they found out in time that they were about to Link and were able to give them the contraceptive implant first. She’d been so sure she’d caught it for Kitra. It was a lesson for the future— never take fertility for granted.

  The screen confirmed what Kitra had guessed. “Looks like once again Ghyan— and you— were right,” she said, keeping her tone light as she turned back to them. “It’s been about two weeks, hasn’t it? Then there’s no rush to make up your mind. You have at least a month before we need to worry.”

  “Would it b
e like Kashini?” Kitra asked. “Part Human as well?”

  “We think so, since you both carry part Human genes yourself. That’s what being gene-altered is about. Don’t let that put you off, though, Kitra. Your cub will look like you and Dzaka. It would take a good eye to tell the difference between our cubs and the pure Sholan ones,” Vanna said kindly, touching her cheek in an affectionate gesture. “But then, you know that already, don’t you, looking after Kashini the way you do.”

  The comm buzzed and she excused herself.

  the Couana, the same day

  T’Chebbi surveyed the damage in the rec area and cursed. She’d thought to jolt him out of his self-pity by highlighting the fact that Carrie and Kaid felt bad enough about what had happened, and that his refusal to see or speak to them, or anyone else, made matters worse for them all. Only he hadn’t taken it that way. Not that he didn’t have good reason to feel the way he did— the revelation that he’d been forced to watch them pairing had shocked her.

  Sighing, she went over to the shattered monitor, seeing the amount of blood splattered across the table and remains of the screen surround. He definitely needed medical attention and couldn’t give it to himself because she’d prohibited his access to medikits. She’d clean this up then go check on him, give him time to cool down and decide he needed her help in dressing the wound. She could apologize then for being so hard on him. No point forcing herself on him again too soon, he wouldn’t bleed to death in the interim.

  *

  An hour passed before she pressed the door chime on his room. After several tries, she began to worry and placed her hand on the hand scanner, only to find it locked. At that point, she called Banner on the bridge.

  Minutes later, he and Jurrel were dismantling the access plate. T’Chebbi heard a door in the corridor behind them opening and cursed quietly. “Hoped to keep this among our own,” she muttered. “Don’t trust Dzaou’s lot.” Right now, it was an effort to maintain her cool exterior.

  “It’s Zhiko,” said Jurrel, glancing over his shoulder as the female came through the iris door toward them. “She’s okay.”

  “Can I help?” Zhiko asked quietly when she saw what they were doing.

  “No,” said T’Chebbi shortly as the door finally began to slide slowly open. “Go back to bed. Door’s jammed, is all.” She squeezed in, leaving the other two to prevent Zhiko from entering.

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Banner, standing in front of the gap. “Everything’s under control. Go back to bed, Zhiko.”

  “You should have been watching him,” she said, refusing to move. “He’s suicidal.”

  “You’ve been listening to Dzaou too much,” said Banner.

  She snorted. “You think I don’t know what I’m talking about? I’ve seen too many telepaths returned like this after the war. We had a name for it back then, and he’s exhibiting all the symptoms.”

  Banner’s face creased in surprise. “I thought only a handful of telepaths were taken during the Desert Clans’ war.”

  Realizing her mistake, Zhiko turned away. “There were, but their symptoms were identical to those suffered during the wars with the Chemerians. There’s a sick bay down in the forward lab area. I’m going to get it ready.” She turned to leave as T’Chebbi emerged, ears flattened to her skull.

  “Get a floater,” she ordered. “He’s unconscious— taken something with alcohol.”

  “Told you,” said Zhiko, pushing past them then heading down the corridor at a run for the floor hatch down to the lab level.

  “There’s a floater in the mess,” said Jurrel. “I’ll fetch it.”

  “Who’s on the bridge?” demanded T’Chebbi, holding Banner back as he made to follow his sword-brother.

  “Brynne and Taeo. They can cope.”

  She nodded and disappeared back into Kusac’s room.

  *

  “I should have known he’d do something like this,” muttered T’Chebbi, pacing the floor of the sick bay. “Shouldn’t have goaded him like I did. Only made it worse.”

  Banner caught hold of her arm, pulling her to a stop. “Sit down, T’Chebbi, you’re only wearing yourself out. Better he did it now when you were going to check up on him, than in the dead of night when no one knew. You only brought it to a head, you didn’t cause it.”

  “Still my fault!”

  “No. He intended to do it anyway,” Banner insisted. “He wouldn’t have stolen the pills otherwise. Thing is, what do we do with him now? Jurrel says he’s stable, but we all know he’ll try again. This was a serious attempt, he’d disabled the door access plate on his side. He didn’t intend us to find him until too late.”

  “Nearly was,” she said with a shudder, looking over at the bed where he lay unconscious, hooked up to life-support systems, trying not to think of how close he’d come to succeeding. They’d had to make him vomit, then inject him with a series of drugs to counteract the ones he’d taken. Even now, he was on a ventilator to compensate for his depressed autonomic functions. “Wish we had a Sholan autodoc, then we could keep him in it!”

  “There’s a Sholan cryo unit,” said Jurrel quietly, coming over. “We could put him in that.”

  T’Chebbi shot him an angry look.

  “At least there he’s safe,” argued Banner. “We wouldn’t need to watch him twenty-six hours a day.”

  T’Chebbi hesitated. “I call Kaid,” she said at last. “Can’t keep it from them anyway. Can I use this unit?” she asked, pointing to the one on the dispensing counter.

  “Should be able to,” said Banner, going over to it. “I’ll see if Taeo can route a channel to the Hkariyash down here from the bridge.”

  *

  Kaid listened to her in silence. “You did what you thought best,” he said quietly. “Is the cryo unit a standard Sholan one? Can it be removed from the Couana?”

  She nodded. “Can keep him in it till we get to the med center on the estate and revive him there,” she confirmed. “Then return unit to Couana afterward.”

  “Do it. We can’t afford to take any more risks with him.”

  “One more thing, Kaid,” she said, slipping into Jalnian so no one else could understand her. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. Thank Vartra, Carrie’s still asleep. What is it?” he replied in the same language.

  “J’koshuk made Kusac watch you and Carrie pairing.”

  “What?”

  “He saw you and Carrie when you paired the first time on Kz’adul.”

  A scene flashed before his eyes.

  Hands bound behind him, he was being dragged toward a large window that gave onto the room next door. The hand holding his scruff pulled his head painfully back, claws gouging his flesh as he was hauled to a stop.

  “Look, even now they betray you in this act of reproduction!”

  He looked, seeing enough to know that one of the two figures in the bed was Carrie. The other— was Sholan, that was all he could tell. He turned his head aside, saying nothing.

  A hiss of anger from his captor and he was flung against the transparent screen, his face pressed painfully against the cool surface.

  “You’ll watch till I say otherwise! That is your mate, linked mentally to you! Would you die for them now? You’re a bigger fool than I thought!”

  It had all been there had he realized it— all the clues of their captivity. The nonretractile clawed hands, the two-way wall, the sterile, medical feel to the whole scene, the Sholan in bed with Carrie. Only, in the vision, the captive hadn’t been him as he’d thought, it had been Kusac. He’d seen it through Kusac’s eyes. “Dammit! I’d forgotten that one!” he said, shocked.

  “Vision?”

  “I saw it happen, only I didn’t realize it till now. It was all there— our captivity, the Primes being Valtegans— only I failed to recognize it! Even the fact it couldn’t have been me seeing it! Vartra’s bones,” he whispered. “Put him in cryo immediately, T’Chebbi. He needs a telepath mind medic as soon as possible.”


  “You call Vanna or shall I?”

  “I’ll call her.” He glanced at his wrist comm and did a quick mental calculation. “It’s day there. I’ll do it now.”

  “Sorry, Kaid,” she said. “Didn’t do a good enough job. Got it badly wrong. It worked with you, thought it would work with him.”

  “No, you did what you thought was right,” he said again. “You couldn’t know what was in his mind. He did this before, on the Khalossa, when he thought Carrie was too scared to accept the Leska Link. I should have remembered that too! Has he gained consciousness at all?”

  She shook her head. “Not what you’d call conscious. Too drugged-up to say anything sensible. Cursed us a bit.”

  “You go now. Don’t leave him alone for a minute, even when he’s in cryo. Watch that unit carefully. I don’t want him conscious in cryo like Carrie was. Get him right under.”

  She nodded before cutting the connection.

  Kaid leaned his chin on his hand and stared at the blank screen, wondering how the hell he was going to tell Carrie.

  *

  “Call from the Hkariyash for you, Physician Kyjishi,” said Ni’Zulhu, head of the estate security.

  “What?” she said disbelievingly, glancing round at Kitra and Taizia, hoping they hadn’t heard. “I’ll take it in my office,” she began.

  “Don’t,” said Taizia, coming over. “Take it here. If it’s about my brother, I’ve a right to know.”

  “You shouldn’t assume it’s about Kusac,” said Vanna.

  “Sorry, Physician, didn’t realize you were busy. Kaid said you were to take the call alone,” prompted Ni’Zulhu.

  “I’ll take it here,” said Vanna, turning back to the screen. Taizia was right: they were entitled to know.

  Kaid frowned when he saw Kusac’s sister. “This is private, Vanna.”

  “I’ve a right to hear,” repeated Taizia.

  “Vanna,” he appealed. “I’m exhausted. It’s the middle of the night for us. I don’t think this is appropriate.”

  “It would be more cruel to keep it from them now, Kaid.”

  “Them?”

  “Kitra’s here too.”