Warrior’s Woman l-1

by Johanna Lindsey

  Warrior’s Woman

  ( Ly-San-Ter - 1 )

  Johanna Lindsey

  Resilient beauty Tedra has devoted her life to the art of combat, and no one, least of all a man, has ever been able to pierce through that rigid armor of single-minded purpose. When political upheaval forces her to flee her homeland, the strongly independent maiden finds that her only refuge is in the arms of a bronzed barbarian.

  In a brotherhood where warriors rule supreme, Challen is the fiercest and most feared. He quickly claims Tedra as tradition and his own desires demand, but though he sparks her yet unfulfilled passion, the proud fighter refuses to submit to any man’s will. Challenging him to physical battle, she also dares him to discover that she is a worthy opponent, partner, and companion—and together they can conquer all realms.

  Johanna Lindsey

  Warrior’s Woman

  TO SUSANNE, WHO SAID GO FOR IT;

  SHARON, FOR INSPIRATION;

  AND ALFRED, FOR HIS SA’ABO .

  MANY, MANY THANKS.

  Chapter One

  Kystran, 2139 A. C. (After Colonization)

  The demonstration against boskrat killing had been going on for three days, with ecology students marching in front of the Fanya Science Lab, their projector banners flashing on and off in neon colors, protesting the need for the extinction of another species in the name of science. The anticipated riot had come to pass and was now in full swing, joined by bored and frustrated Fanya citizens on the lookout for a little excitement and tension release.

  If it were only the ecology people involved, who had protesting down to an art form, there wouldn’t have been any trouble. But the local Stress Clinic had been closed last week for remodeling and extension, and the unattached citizens of Fanya, those not having filed for double occupancy, were more aggressive than usual.

  “If they don’t get their sex once a day in the clinics, they think their world’s coming to an end,” Fanya’s Chief of Science had complained to Garr Ce Bernn, present Director of Kystran. “These young people don’t remember what it was like before we had Stress Clinics in every city.”

  “Neither do we,” the Director had replied dryly, but he’d sent a Sec 1 as requested to pacify the man.

  Tedra De Arr was the lucky volunteer ordered to Fanya to take charge of the local Security Division. And she’d known after her first hour there that if the growing crowds got out of hand, there wouldn’t be much she could do about it without some serious damage to life and limb involved. The Fanya Security Division was nothing but a bunch of young graduates who didn’t know their phazor units from their communicators, the reason that they were never given combo-units. And if the cits decided to get destructive while rescuing the ugly little boskrats, she didn’t see much hope in stopping them with the kind of backup available in this small town.

  With only forty Sec men on hand and at least a hundred citizens already breaking down the outer doors, Tedra thought about leaving quietly by the rear entrance. That was what those frightened scientists had done, and she didn’t give a farden damn about the scaly little creatures they’d left behind for her to defend. Defend, hell. She couldn’t stand the creepy things herself. Why would she want to defend them?

  With unkind thoughts for the man who had volunteered her for this temporary duty, Tedra lifted the computer link from her belt which gave her a direct line to Martha, her personal Mock II computer. “You know the stats, Martha, and they’re breaking the doors down now. What are the odds on their grabbing the boskrats and running?”

  “About sixty to one.” Martha’s very feminine voice came through the small, hand-sized link unit loud and clear. “If it weren’t for the Stress Clinic being closed-”

  Tedra cut her off with a snarl, literally, returning the compact unit to her belt. “Farden sex,” she cursed to herself. “When did it get to be a be-all, cure-all, got-to-have-it-or-I’ll-fall-to-pieces-or get violent?”

  “Did you say something, Sec 1?”

  Tedra turned around to the kid behind her, and he was just a kid. Couldn’t be more than eighteen years. Of course, when she was eighteen, she’d been at the top of her class, had been actively working for a year even though she continued her training, and was already unmatched in her field. That was five years ago. Four years ago she had earned her present rank, Security 1, the highest rating for an expert in weapons and hand-to-hand combat. The young man who had spoken wasn’t likely even a Sec 5, the lowest rating, though he would have to be to be assigned to her. They shouldn’t turn them out for active duty until they are ready, but you couldn’t tell Administration that, not when there was such a shortage of Security available. Too many of the new crop of students elected to train for more fulfilling and less dangerous life careers, especially on a planet not at war and in a league of planets devoted to peace and profitable trade.

  “No, I didn’t say anything to you, Sec 5, but I’ll say it now. We’re going to let the cits have what they want, because I don’t believe a building and a bunch of smelly, ugly boskrats are worth anyone dying for. Stay out of the way and hope they settle for the bosk-rats. But if they come at you, shoot to stun. If that doesn’t turn the tide, run like hell. Pass the word; stun only. If a single cit ends up dead when this is over, you Secs will answer to me.”

  She didn’t have to add they’d wish they were the ones who’d died if it came to that. A Sec 1 was no one to cross. Using you as a rag to wipe the floor with was the least of what one could do to you, and the Sec knew it.

  When the crowd came through the last door into the large, vaulted lab, there were unfortunately few of the ecology students among them. These were the unattached cits who had been denied their daily ration of sex therapy for a week, poor things, and they had no interest in the farden boskrats other than as an excuse to relieve stress and tension in the old-fashioned way, with a heady dose of violence. They went right for the equipment and the Secs, breaking and attacking what they could. Stunning didn’t help much beyond the first horde.

  Tedra De Arr spent the next half hour doing some breaking herself, on bones and faces. The local med-itechs would be busy for the rest of the afternoon, but at least no one was seriously injured. But she was still angry as hell. She didn’t like to break bones and hear men scream while she was doing it, not for no farden boskrats anyway. At least the women in the crowd had stuck to damaging only the furniture and equipment, because she liked hearing women scream even less, and she didn’t need anything to put her in a worse foul mood.

  But it was still a fiasco and a waste of her talent, and she was still angry about it when she later returned to the temporary quarters assigned to her. That kid, the one she’d just known had had no business being there, had shot his own foot with his phazor unit. What she wouldn’t give to get hold of his instructor for five minutes. He wouldn’t be releasing students before they were ready after that.

  Marching to her door, she slapped her hand against the identilock without slowing her pace, and slammed right into the unmoving obstacle. She cursed a blue streak before calming enough to put her hand again to the lock for the required two seconds for identification. The door quietly slid open then under her fierce glower, but she wasn’t pacified, not in the least. The next time Garr Ce Bernn got the idea that she’d appreciate the extra exchange tokens an outside assignment could earn, she’d tell him what he could do with them himself, and she didn’t care if he was the head honcho of the whole planet.

  She was a Sec 1, and the job of a Sec 1 was to protect and defend the leaders on the planet, not to be loaned out to any farden department. Her own job was the highest-paying in her field, assigned to Goverance Building and the Director himself. But to give him his due, he’d known she’d just bought
a house in the suburbs outside the city, and likely thought she needed help paying for it. He thought he’d been doing her a favor. After she calmed down she’d see it that way, and probably even thank him when she got back to Gallion City, but she had to calm down first.

  Picking up her pace again, she went straight to the Sanitary wall in the corner of the one-room quarters, pressed the wall activator, and started stripping as the walls slid out to enclose her in a five-foot-square area. The lights came on automatically as the newly created room within a room closed with a soft click around her. Out came the toilet if she should need it, a hair-and-eye changer, and a drawer full of lotions and perfumes and a few male colognes left over by the last occupant. All she was interested in, however, was the bath.

  She stepped out of her one-piece uniform, made of all-weather solarcloth in the standard silver-gray that denoted her rank. The body revealed in the mirrored wall to her left was long-legged, tightly muscled, in prime condition. Strength was there without the bulge of muscle, leaving lines femininely curved and deceptive. It was a body that had undergone fifteen years of intensive exercise and training, turning it into a fighting machine. She still regretted the three years that had been wasted as a student of World Discovery, her second choice in careers, before her height finally became apparent and she was allowed to switch to her first choice.

  She paused when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wall and noticed the frown still marring her fine-boned countenance. She needed a tension relaxer but knew the bath wouldn’t do it. What she needed was her massager, but as the machines were rare and used only by a few residents on Kystran, they weren’t standard in temporary quarters. The apartment had most of the other amenities she would find at home, but a massager wasn’t one of them.

  She knew what Martha would tell her to do about it, and was glad that Fanya’s Stress Clinic wasn’t operational, because for the first time she was actually tempted to visit one. The benefits would be the same, just accomplished with a different kind of body pounding, the kind she had yet to experience, though not for lack of offers. Men were attracted to her despite her size, and it was only her Sec 1 rating that kept them from becoming nuisances about it in pursuit of her. She often wondered how bad it would be if she weren’t as tall as she was. But she was above average in height, about an inch above the male average of five feet nine inches. Six feet was tops for men on Kystran, but rare, and all of those six-footers were in Security, which would have been nice if she was interested, only she wasn’t.

  Eventually would come along the man she couldn’t make mincemeat out of, and then she would be glad that her body was sleek and nicely proportioned, her breasts an abundant handful, her waist narrower than most, and her hips marginally curved rather than bony or thrusting. The peach-gold skin tone, large almond-shaped eyes, patrician nose, and soft coral mouth were nothing to ignore either. The stern brown hair and eye color were only for effect and not her own today, but they couldn’t detract from features that went together just right to from a very pretty package. Tedra didn’t bemoan that package. She had just never had a reason to appreciate any of it except for her height, which was one of the main requirements for a career in Security.

  She left her uniform where it dropped on the floor, knowing the robocleaner would zip out to pick up after her as soon as the walls opened. No one could accuse Tedra of being tidy, but then robocleaners had been around longer than she had and they tended to spoil a person awful, keeping everything sparkling and sanitary and in its proper place. The machine stood no higher than her hips, moved on silent rollers so it never made a nuisance of itself; in fact, most of the time she barely noticed the thing as it worked around her. Her home unit was even programmed to take her order and bring her meals to her in bed if she felt too lazy or tired to get up and press the buttons on her Meal Provider herself. Hell, the farden thing would brush her teeth if she’d let it.

  The solaray bath was smaller than her home unit by about a foot, the tubelike bath about a foot and a half round, just barely adequate for someone her size. The curved door slid quietly shut as soon as both feet were on the floor of the unit, and the tall cylinder filled with a red light that bathed her in scarlet hues. The beam of light turned off by itself after three seconds, the door opening automatically, a silent suggestion that she step out, which she did, squeaky clean now from head to toe, even the dull brown of her hair given a soft sheen in the cleaning. She didn’t know how the thing worked, but the solaray bath had come into use more than fifty years ago during what was now termed the Great Water Shortage, and stayed in use because of the time-saving efficiency of the thing. Her home unit, a newer model, was designed to be compatible with the solarcloth of her uniforms, to clean them as well, and since the uniform was thin and comfortable enough to sleep in, too, it saved her even more time in not having to change clothes unless she was going somewhere other than on duty. Few citizens on the planet remembered what it was like to take baths any other way.

  But her assignment was finished here now, and so she dialed a two-piece outfit, which the closet promptly delivered, the pants and vestlike top being the only other articles of clothing she had brought with her for her short stay in Fanya. The perfume she favored had been applied only last week, so she didn’t need to refresh it. And the little bit of eye makeup she preferred, a thin application of black liner that matched her lashes, and the barest smudge of blusher were permanent. She was done with the nondescript hair color now that the job was finished, and spared the twenty seconds required for a new color, a vibrant lemon yellow that she couldn’t wear well with any but the brown eye shade. She kept her long hair in the tight folded roll required by her job, since it was unnecessary to loosen it for cleaning or coloring. A quick swipe with the styler over her shortened bangs to get them off her forehead, and she was ready to depart, the whole process having taken less than five minutes.

  The robocleaner was already heading toward her as soon as the walls opened and disappeared in their slots. “Pack me to go, fella,” she told it, not having bothered to name a temporary unit, afraid her home model might get jealous if she did. Even though it wasn’t a free-thinking machine like Martha, she didn’t want to take any chances of upsetting her smoothly run household.

  While she waited for her personal items to be collected and bagged, she headed for the audiovisual console to call her boss to tell him she had happily failed her mission. Every single boskrat had been whisked out of the lab when the ecology students had finally stumbled their way over the bodies on the floor to rescue their scaly friends. Actually, she hadn’t really failed. The building was still standing, no one was dead, and there was only minor damage to the interior of the lab. No one had said she had to prevent the boskrats from leaving the premises.

  Dropping into the adjustichair before the console, which immediately adjusted to her height and contours, she was just about to activate the long-distance channel for direct access to Gallion City, nine hundred miles away, when the three-by-three-foot screen flashed on in front of her, and a man she vaguely recognized filled the screen in vivid color. Her hand stilled in midair and she sat back, a little in shock that the screen was on without having had the voice command of “Answer,” nor had the console chimed that there was a call awaiting her attention. People didn’t appear on audiovisual consoles without permission, since the viewing was two-way and it would be an invasion of privacy otherwise. Yet there the man was, looking at her, sitting behind a desk in an office she did recognize, the office of the Director of Kystran, but he was most definitely not Garr Ce Bemn.

  The shock dissipated before he spoke as it dawned on her that he couldn’t see her, that she was seeing what many other people were likely seeing at that very moment-a multiple transmission. She knew it could be done, that every single audiovisual unit could broadcast simultaneously planetwide, but it had never been done before, so she couldn’t be faulted for being thrown by it. But the shock returned as he began to speak.

/>   “Greetings, citizens.” His voice was modulated. He looked a happy man and likely was, if his message could be believed. “Some of you may remember me from my bid for the Directorship in 2134 A.C…, five years ago.”

  Now she knew where she’d seen him before, with his brown hair an even mousier shade than hers had been, and his gray eyes like chipped steel. The challenge for the Directorship had taken place before she had been transferred to Goverance Building, when she was still a Sec 2, but she remembered how outraged the citizens had been at this man’s underhanded tactics in trying to buy votes from the Council of Nine, who were only all-powerful during election time every ten years when it was their duty to decide the matter, and were mere advisors otherwise.

  “Whether you remember me or not is of no importance,” he continued, seeming to have read Tedra’s thoughts. “All that you need know is that I am Crad Ce Moerr, your new Director-”

  “The hell you say!” she growled, almost missing the rest, since he didn’t stop to allow for her fury.

  “-by virtue of might. I have this day taken control of Goverance Building and do not intend to give it up. The takeover was accomplished with ease and a minimum of casualties. And you will be pleased to know your previous Director will not be harmed as long as there are no attempts to remove him from Goverance Building, where he will enjoy a comfortable confinement as hostage for your good behavior during the transition of power, as well as in the years to come. Let me assure you there will be no major changes under my Directorship. Your careers and lives, good citizens, will continue as they are, including those of Security, the only difference being you have a new Director to lead you in peace and prosperity, a new Director to protect and revere. I am he, Crad Ce Moerr.”