Thunder held his breath while the silence stretched. A tiny intermittent scratching sound caught his attention and for a long period, it was his only clue that the determined android still lived.
"Guerreterre trades with them because they're the only sourc-" An ominous hissing sound sounded like a dozen angry cats. "Eepyllihg. The only fluid more valuable than water."
A starburst of sparks erupted over him. As the burst spattered to the hard floor around him, an ear-splitting shriek slashed the air and GEA-4 dropped across his chest. A jolt of agony crippled every cell of his body. A moment later, all thought and feeling vanished and he returned to the black void.
ooo
"Picking up a transmission." Nambaba's calm maternal voice flowed from the speakers in the control hub making it seem like she was everywhere yet nowhere.
Raine paused from calculating the quickest route home and glanced at the monitor, which seemed nearly empty now that the majority of the asteroid field was behind her. There were no telltale blips to indicate ships close enough for Nambaba to pick up a communiqué from. But before Gornt had been sent to war, his crew had been warned about Guerreterre's stealth capabilities and she was in their territory. A shiver went down her spine. “Computer, display rotating views in two second intervals.” Obediently, the display circled through all possible views. There had to be other explanations. Detection would be difficult with all the iron-bearing ore in the lumps of rock. Difficult, but not impossible. Her tongue flicked out to dampen her lips.
She was in Guerreterre territory. Worse, she had one of their warriors on board. That fact could be either good or bad. Good, if they did not attack their own. Bad if they thought she’d attacked him on purpose. "Can you determine location of transmission?"
"Deflection makes analysis impossible."
Raine sighed with exasperation. “You were able to track the mooncalf.”
“It has a silica base; ships do not.”
Big surprise. "What about the radio frequency? What can you tell me about that?"
"It is a Guerreterran frequency."
Is, not was. Raine jerked. "Translate and transmit."
Nambaba altered her speech pattern to imitate a sonorous voice. "I received your report." The tiny hairs on the back of Raine's neck quivered. “And?” a feminine voice demanded. “It was informative.” Nambaba continued translating the dialogue and relating it in two voices. Either Guerreterran warriors were stupid enough to think they could camouflage their comments with chitchat about minerals, which seemed unlikely, or one of their meddlesome research vessels was nearby. The dialogue continued on about chemical analysis of various different rocks, nothing of which had anything to do with her human and android cargo. In fact, everything sounded typical of what she constantly heard in home space. Raine exhaled a breath that she hadn't realize she'd been holding. She’d personally seen two of their exploratory craft in Kalamar’s territory. After the first one, The Zar had been so enraged he had offered the reward of rank and privilege to the first person who sighted another.
Otami had won and not let anyone forget his superiority. Then, his crew had lost a mooncalf and the status he'd been so arrogant about had been yanked away as abruptly as it had been given.
She had not gained as much rank as she would like, but that didn't mean she couldn't take a long fall, too. A full-blown chill rippled under her thick spacesuit.
Raine shook her head at her loss of emotional balance and told herself to focus on what to do with her unexpected cargo. Those thoughts quickly veered to guessing the value of the android's components. Soon, Raine was jotting down a list of things she wanted to overhaul and trying to estimate the expense of repairing Nambaba's obsolete circuitry.
Several moments later, the pompous voice seemed to conclude the communication with, "and will send a mining team to the crevasse.”
"Did you have a chance to see the most recent data?" The woman’s voice sounded as if she was trying to simultaneously placate and motivate her superior. Raine identified with her status, though couldn’t imagine spending her life dealing with rocks, chemical properties, ease of extraction and the other boring space babble, which Nambaba had been relating. Not when she could herd madrox.
"When was this file made?" the pompous male said, "Guerreterre is at peace with Kalamar."
Were they talking about her being in their territory? Raine froze, mouth open. and stared at the mooncalf's knobby nose, which was visible in the corner of the oval view screen.
Since when were they at peace with the Guerreterran savages?
What data had been sent and why had it mentioned Kalamar?
Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence that a research unit was in the area on the one day in her life when a misfit mooncalf had dashed millions of light-years from it’s home moon and lured her into their space… the day she’d inadvertently downed one of their warriors. "Nambaba, were you able to intercept the file that they mentioned?"
"No." Nambaba said then quickly changed her tone and slipped back into translating the woman’s comments, "I am still monitoring the madrox and ship."
The Guerreterrans called mooncalves, madrox. That proved someone was watching her. The question became how much they’d seen and what they intended to do about it. Raine's stomach clenched with the knowledge that she had to be the one and only dragon shepherd within a million light years.
Did the woman know the android and warrior were in her storage locker? That she's blasted the escarpment and injured them? Raine’s fingers went to her dragon neckband for comfort and support.
If she'd been observed, why hadn't anyone tried to stop her? Were the Shadow Warriors organizing an attack against her or using phony mining terms to get permission to retaliate? A chill swept over her. "Nambaba, how soon until we're out of Guerreterre space?"
"We passed the buoy fifty-nine cesiums ago."
Did that mean she was safe? That they had let her go? Or were they still watching her, allowing her to know she was under surveillance … playing with her as a ghatto did its prey.
“Scan for a cloaked ship.”
She'd obviously committed an act of war when she’d fired a hydro blast in their space and injured their warrior, so why hadn’t the speaker retaliated and blown away her ship?
Did they adhere that closely to treaties?
If so, it went against everything she’d ever heard about the barbarians.
This had to be about eepyllihg. Were they ignorant enough to believe that monitoring her would teach them how to prepare the formula?
If so, they would not be pleased to learn that shepherds cared for the herd, but had noting to do with eepyllihg production. They could torture her for the formula, perhaps even kill her, but then she could not give information that only true nobility had.
Raine sighed and hoped they had no idea how little value The Zar placed on subservient life and prayed that they were satisfied with watching her.
But if they were as cunning as everyone whispered, that wouldn’t be likely, so there had to be some other reason they hadn’t challenged her for firing on their own. Raine swallowed. Perhaps their equipment was good enough to detect that the warrior lived. If he died, she’d never live long enough to find a way to save Dalf; she’d never live long enough to see another wave shimmer in the light of the twin moons; she’d never live long enough to profit by the android’s parts. Perspiration stung her eyes.
"Computer, check the coordinates of the origin of this transmission." Raine shivered as she waited for Nambaba's CPU to respond and glared out the monitor at the mooncalf, which accompanied her, as obediently as a pet porpoise. "You'd better hope we get back safely,” she told it. “This is all your fault, you know."
If she got back to Kalamar and managed to keep the warrior alive, would she be safe? No matter how hard she tried, she could not imagine The Zar protecting her from breaking whatever treaty he apparently had with the warmongers. She had ventured beyond the area he had assigned to his
mooncalves and done so because it was her job, but that wouldn’t make a difference. If Guerreterre put in an official complaint, The Zar would probably give her to the shadow demons.
Guerreterre was his biggest customer. It made sense that her planet had some sort of treaty with the savages, after all Kalamar's exclusive fuel additive allowed Guerreterre's forces to fold space. If he ever found out she had nearly killed one of their warriors, he’d probably give Guerreterre her entire family as a conciliation to keep supplying them eepyllihg.
Perhaps he would kill her, himself.
Oh, Spirit, if they made a political incident out of this, at the very least, The Zar would have her juices recycled in retribution for all the embarrassment she brought on his reign! And all for disrupting a treaty she was unaware of.
Raine frowned as she tried to figure out why the watcher had not attacked her. Would one of Guerreterre's shadow demons forfeit an opportunity to murder innocents because they wanted eepyllihg? Probably, since it gave them the ability to conquer entire worlds more than taking the life of an individual.
Or could it be because she had one of their own? She tried to imagine that the mystery ship was holding back to assure the warrior’s survival, but after everything she’d heard about them, she couldn’t imagine one doing anything humanitarian. Eat their own, probably, but not save a life to save one of their own.
Still, there had to be a reason why she hadn’t been terminated and if there was the slightest chance it was because of her cargo, she needed to take special care. Raine cleared her throat. "Computer, scan our cargo bay and determine if our passengers are emitting any unusual energy readings: a distress signal, a tracking beacon – anything."
Why had the android demanded that she save the warrior when there was assistance nearby? Were its circuits too damaged to detect the other ship?
"Continue observing," the self-important voice said. What if they were waiting to assure themselves that she was just as alone and vulnerable as she appeared? If so, it would only be a matter of time.
"Should I liberate the warrior?" the woman asked, confirming Raine’s worse fears.
Oh, Spirit, they knew! Raine shuddered.
"It would not be to our advantage," the man said,
Thank The Spirit for that! Still, she had to get out of here before he changed his mind. Without concern to plotting her optimum course, Raine grabbed the collective and prepared to ram it forward.
"Embedded identification chips detected," Nambaba said.
Chips.
Plural.
Raine paused to digest the information. Not only did they know she had the warrior, they knew about the android. Of course their warriors would be marked and the markers would be obvious to anyone with the appropriate equipment, just like everyone was on Kalamar. But how? She fingered her neck band. They’d marked the robot, too – that would make selling it very difficult, if not impossible. Her first reaction was to open the hatch and dump the evidence, but even as she had the thought, she knew it was the worst possible thing she could do. Since there was no way she could dispose of either of her problems while under surveillance, her only option was to proceed home and make it appear as if she was trying to get medical help for the victim. If she'd thought it would save her, she would land on the nearest asteroid and give her dangerous cargo to the watching ship, but the very fact that the ship remained cloaked told her there would be no chance of that.
Her only hope was saving the barbarian.
Raine prayed to The Spirit that The Zar wouldn’t make her a political example, to protect his contracts and treaties.
A muffled explosion shook Nambaba's hull so hard that the nav-stick wrenched free from her grip and shot toward her stomach.
Dear Spirit, she was under attack!
Raine grabbed the stick and thrust it forward. It moved so freely that she nearly fell into the console. "Nambaba," she shouted, "run diagnostics." A high-pitched whining shriek felt as if it were knifing her head in two. She hit the containment button.
"Complying."
Wisps of acrid smoke stung her eyes. Raine yanked the nav-stick back on course, as she looked around the control-hub. Smoke boiled in all the air vents. She grabbed for her face-mask.
Dear Spirit, did that indicate an electronic meltdown?
Had she been fired on?
Had one of her supposedly injured passengers sabotaged her ship?
Had one of the out-dated components finally ruptured?
"Diagnostic complete," Nambaba calmly said.
"And?"
"The urgent repair list remains unchanged."
"Turgamatory!" Raine's fingers tightened on the collective and she stared at the attitude gauge. It indicated that the spacecraft was stable, but did she dare trust it to unbuckle her safety harness and get her breather? "What about the new damage?” She coughed. “The smoke?" Raine checked the gauges.
“Detected.” The CPU whirred. “No fire.” There was a longer pause. “Unable to discover smoke’s source.” Raine stared at the monitor’s scrolling data and gritted her teeth. Unless all the instruments were malfunctioning, Nambaba could be correct; nothing appeared amiss except the smoke rolling into the control hub from every air vent.
She coughed some more. Then, with a silent, fervent prayer, she unsnapped her harness and secured her mask. When Nambaba stayed on course, Raine looked around the hazy hub. It wasn’t good, but it didn’t seem to be getting any worse. She switched on the lower level hallway monitor. The camera showed thicker smoke. Had the warrior tried to escape? Had he faked the extent of his injuries? Was he free in Nambaba. If only the storage locker had an interior camera or sensors so she could check! She adjusted the corridor unit to focus on the locked door and studied the surface, which should have been flat but now bulged outward. It looked like something inside the storeroom had exploded.
Or perhaps, despite the man’s directive, the hidden ship had attacked Nambaba and freed her cargo. They could have simply hailed her and asked!
Oh, Spirit, had they tried to get out and failed? What could be worse than a dead warrior? … A live one that was stalking her.
The door looked bad. What if they'd expired? Would the ship, which was spying on her think she'd murdered the warrior?
Raine shivered and wished she could begin this shift all over.
"Nambaba, scan the storage locker door."
"Heat detected. Possible fire inside. Taking countermeasures." Raine started counting to ten. At seven, Nambaba reported, "Countermeasures failed. Retardant must be deployed manually." A chill rushed over her. Had the warrior died and caused the android to plan the perfect trap – a situation that mandated her response?
Raine grabbed the yellow suppressant-grenade and moved cautiously toward the hatch. What if this was an ambush? Raine paused halfway to the lower-level hatch, turned back to the monitor and studied the now convex door. She swallowed. The protrusion had to have been caused by an explosion. Obviously a small one, since the hull hadn't ruptured and only the door and surrounding wall showed damage.
She'd checked the android and warrior for arms, so there had to be something volatile about the android's construction.
Holding the small grenade in front of her, Raine gingerly made her way down the thin ladder. With every step, the smoke thickened around her. By the time her feet touched the floor the air almost looked solid. Uncertain of what to do, she looked around the corridor. "Nambaba, check for ships closing in."
"Negative contact."
Raine turned on the secondary monitor; the peaceful image seemed to coincide with the ship's CPU. She tapped it to alternate to an exterior view. The mooncalf still glided along her port side, close enough for the hull to glow with heat, just as it had been since she'd launched from the planetoid. Perhaps it had caused the problem. After all, Nambaba had not been built to sustain such intense heat for such an extended period. Worse, if the mooncalf got much closer, the hydro in Nambaba's shielding would poison it.
/> Perhaps the calf’s presence was the reason the other vessel kept its distance. Raine shook her head at the thought of how their rolls might have temporarily switched and the juvenile delinquent of a dragon could have become her protector.
Abruptly, a calliope of alarms went off. "Heat index indicates the electrical fire is expanding. Crucial components will soon be threatened." Raine jumped. Crucial assets, like her own life and potential economic windfall – assuming the android had survived the blast and she could extract its identification chip. "Retardant must be deployed," Nambaba intoned.
"Turgamatory!" Raine lunged forward. Her hand closed over the dead bolt. The metal seared her fingers. Worse, it didn't budge. She jumped back, drew her sidearm, kicked the lock free, then jumped back, both suppressant and weapon ready.
Smoke rolled out of the cabin, like fog on an eerie dusk. Nothing else moved.
Raine took a deep breath of canned air and waited.
In the murk, flames leaped. She hit the activator button on the suppressant grenade and tossed it inside, then yanked the door closed.
A soft muffled explosion indicted that it had activated. Raine looked up and saw an odd peachy splotch above the storage locker door and started counting. At twenty-seven she realized the area looked strange because it looked hot. Get a hold of yourself. You're looking at a semitransparent section and the mooncalf is on that side. The hull isn't melting, you're just not used to being this close to your responsibilities.
She hoped.
Despite the mask, she couldn't seem to breathe. A quick glance told her that her personal tank was out of air. She attached a new container, took a deep breath and then continued the silent count. At one-hundred she said, "Nambaba, clear the air in the lower corridor and upper control-hub."
Thunder Moon: Book 2 of the Chatterre Trilogy (Chatterre Triology) Page 7