Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4)

by Michelle Diener

“He's not dead?”

  She shook her head. But there was a deep feeling of unease gnawing at her stomach now.

  The questions were leading to something, and she didn't think she was going to like where they ended up.

  He lifted the shockgun, so it was aimed at her head. “I'm guessing you won't bounce back from a kill shot to your head the same way you bounced back from one to your torso.”

  Bounced back was a bit of an overstatement, anyway. She had been leveled.

  “And your point?”

  “My point is I see in this situation a very simple way to extricate myself from something that I haven't wanted to be part of from the beginning.” He flicked the shockgun toward the cliff top, indicating she should move in that direction.

  She didn't.

  His plan was starting to become clear.

  “You're going to leave and pretend you were never here.”

  He clicked his tongue in agreement. “But you're going to be at the bottom of the cliff first.”

  “Why not just leave? What does it matter to you?”

  “Because I don't like you. It's been personal since you hit me over the head. And besides, if by some amazing luck you get to safety, you can point a finger at me. I'd rather not take the risk.”

  “What about Dray?”

  “Same logic applies.”

  She'd known that, she just wanted to see what he had to say.

  She tried to think of a way out of this. “Did you go into the town for supplies?”

  He nodded.

  “So there's a record of you.”

  “I used the credit bank Virn gave me. There's no link back to me at all. Now I'm all supplied up, and I think it works out just fine that I can take my leave.”

  There was something slightly gleeful and smug in his demeanor, as if things had fallen just right for him.

  He hadn't had to leave his team mates, fate had killed them for him and now he was free.

  But he was going to kill her first. And then Dray.

  Except that wasn't going to happen.

  She tried to think of a way out of the situation, and realized there was nothing left for her but frontal assault.

  He would shoot her. The choice would be whether she stood still for him to do it, or tried to disrupt his plan.

  She launched herself, giving no warning, and he lifted the shockgun up, as if to protect his face.

  She grabbed the weapon, wrestling him for it, but at half a foot taller than her, he had a height advantage.

  He pushed her back, face set, and for a moment she balanced, her heels just over the cliff's edge.

  He swung the shockgun and the butt of it hit her side. She fell back, her arms windmilling, her last glimpse was of him giving a screech of triumph.

  She slammed down on a hard, cold surface, and for a moment simply couldn't process what had happened. Until the surface she was lying on lifted up, and she saw Rua's face again, this time slack with shock, as she rose above him.

  She scrambled to her knees, and found she was on some type of flat, sleek drone. It seemed to swallow the darkness, as if it was a piece of the night sky.

  There was a flash of purple, and Rua collapsed.

  “Bane?”

  It had to be.

  If it wasn't--

  “Are you all right?” Bane's voice came from somewhere below her.

  “I am so happy to hear your voice.”

  “I'm sorry it took me so long to find you. I only caught the trail when one of them went to get supplies in the local town.”

  She fixed her eyes in front of her, not daring to look down or around.

  “Dray's hurt.”

  “I see him.” The drone dropped down, keeping close to the cliff face, and at last, she was level with him.

  Bane must have exquisite control over the drone, because he dipped it a little, and then pressed it up against the rock face.

  It scraped and rubbed a little as the wind buffeted them, but held steady enough.

  She pressed close to Dray, almost collapsing when she felt the rise and fall of his chest. The harness he was wearing seemed complex to her in the dark, and she patted it, looking for a way to release him.

  Her fingers were shaking, and she forced herself to take a deep breath.

  “What's wrong?”

  “I can't find where to unclip him.”

  “The male nynt below has seen the drone, and has just taken flight to come in for what I suspect will be an attack.”

  She wanted to scream, but instead, she hunched over Dray's body and grabbed the rope above him, working her way downward to find where it attached.

  She found the clip, but it was stiff and she swore as she struggled with it.

  The nynt let out a shriek just above her, and purple light flashed again.

  The bird twisted away, and Lucy spared it a glance. It looked like Bane hadn't tried to kill it, just discourage it.

  At last the clip opened and she pulled the rope loose.

  “Got it!”

  The drone moved back from the cliff face and then a panel slid open. “Get in.”

  She tried to maneuver Dray in carefully but he half-fell inside. She was breathing hard by the time she was in with him and the panel had closed.

  For a moment she simply lay where she was, entwined with Dray, her leg twisted at an uncomfortable angle, her hair caught painfully under his arm.

  She felt the path of tears seeping from the corners of her eyes, scalding hot against her wind-frozen cheeks, and sniffed as she struggled to sit up and free her hair.

  “I need you to help Dray.” She managed to get on her knees in the cramped space, and at last was able to look at him properly.

  He looked far better than she feared, but he'd been unconscious for a long time and that couldn't be good.

  “Agreed.” Bane's voice was more intimate here, as if he were standing right next to her. “I'll take you to my ship.”

  “Thank you.” She rested her hand on Dray's throat, taking comfort in the steady beat she could feel there, and then lowered herself down to lie beside him.

  She felt the pull of power as the drone sped through the sky, and wished they could just keep going and never look back.

  Chapter 31

  The world Dray woke up to was completely different to the one he'd been in before he'd lost consciousness.

  He was in a warm, pristine white room, comfortably lying back on a padded bed.

  As he blinked the world into focus, slender mechanical arms whirred and retreated, and he realized he'd been hooked to some med systems.

  He felt good, he realized.

  He lifted his hand to rub the spot where his head had hit the rocks of the cliff, and while it was a little tender, there wasn't so much as a bump.

  He remembered the wide-open beak of the nynt, screaming as it dived at him, and little else after that.

  “You seem to be healed.” The voice that was piped through the walls was not quite the same as it had been before, on the Urna, but he recognized it all the same.

  “Bane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Hiding on Gyre, as I told you I would.”

  “I'm on your Class 5?”

  “You needed medical assistance, and Lucy didn't trust the Tecran to help you.” He paused. “And I didn't want the Urna to know I'm on planet, even if it is just in drone form.”

  “How did you find us?” Relief rushed through him at Bane's mention of Lucy. She'd gotten him here. How, he had no idea.

  “One of the soldiers went into the town near the cave and used a military credit bank. I was monitoring for any military funds used within a certain radius I'd set from the cliff house where they took you. It was just a matter of waiting them out, but I'm sorry you had to endure so much before I found you.”

  “I'm just grateful that you were looking.” He sat up slowly, pleased that the room stayed upright.

  “I would never have aban
doned the search for Lucy. It was one of my goals in coming to Tecra.”

  “I wish you'd been able to let us know she might be here before we left.” It would have made such a difference.

  “One of the Grih's generals tried to kill Rose McKenzie. I didn't feel confident enough in understanding the interpersonal politics in the United Council to trust anyone there.”

  Bane's blunt response forced a smile out of Dray.

  “I don't feel that confident in reading the politics in the United Council myself, so I don't blame you.” He was a military officer, and maybe he'd set himself apart too long from the politics of the UC, but he preferred a more straightforward environment.

  This assignment had not been something he'd have chosen willingly.

  And if he hadn't been sent here, he wouldn't have met Lucy. Wouldn't have been here for her.

  Except . . .

  “How did you get Lucy out of the cave?”

  He'd been on his way down to get her when the nynt had attacked.

  “Lucy climbed out of the cave, and was pulling you back up when one of the Tecran soldiers attacked her and pushed her off the cliff.”

  “What?” Rage boiled up in him, and he hopped down onto the ground.

  “The officer named Rua. I shot him.”

  Dray leaned back against the bed. “Dead?”

  There was an almost startled pause. “No. When Rose McKenzie rescued me, she taught me to only kill when I had no other choice. It occurred to me that he could be a useful witness, so I simply incapacitated him.”

  “And Lucy? She fell off the cliff?” He looked around the room, for some sign she was in the med bay.

  “I stationed the drone just beneath her. She didn't fall far.”

  He slumped a little more against the bed. “Thank you.”

  “There is no need to thank me. I didn't do it for you.”

  “I know, but I'm grateful all the same.”

  “Noted.” Bane's voice seemed a little warmer when he answered.

  “Where is Lucy now?”

  “She was here, watching over you for a long time, but I convinced her to get some sleep herself when you moved from unconsciousness to a deep, natural sleep.”

  He felt a mix of emotions at that information. He managed to identify one as being disappointment that he couldn't see her right now, to see for himself that she was all right.

  “She's up now, though,” Bane said as the silence stretched between them. “She's looking for food in the hold. You know that she is undernourished. I want to blame the Tecran, but she tells me it was her own dislike of the food that kept her from eating enough. They didn't try to starve her.”

  “Then they should have tried harder to find her something she liked.” Dray said, and then remembered that Rose McKenzie had had the same problem, even when she'd found the Grih. So maybe he was being unfair.

  “I'll go down and help her.” Dray looked down at himself. He was still in his uniform, although his boots had been removed.

  He saw them tucked neatly beneath a chair against the wall, and shoved them on. “Which way?”

  Bane gave him directions, and Dray took careful note of everything as he moved down the passages.

  He was one of only a few Grih who'd been on a Class 5. There were a handful of Grihan Battle Center captains and some of their crew who'd been allowed a glimpse, but he was aware he was in a privileged position and he intended to make the most of it.

  “I should be grateful you don't have a handheld on you, or you'd be initiating visual comms.”

  Bane's wry tone was hopefully a sign he wasn't too put out.

  “Would you mind if I did?”

  There was a strange sound, which Dray thought might be an attempt to chuckle. “No. I'd wipe everything I didn't want seen off it before you even finished recording.”

  Dray grinned. “So I shouldn't waste my time?”

  “It's your time,” Bane told him. “I don't care how you use it.” He paused. “Unless it involves hurting Lucy. Then I care.”

  “We're good, then.” Dray took the last flight of stairs down, and approached the huge double doors into the hold.

  They were open, and from inside he heard singing. The acoustics of the hold were obviously good, because the sound seemed to swell up as he stepped inside, and he found he couldn't move.

  He stood just within the doors and listened to music that caught at his throat and closed it up, so he was made mute.

  “What is it?” Bane asked, using just the speaker near the door, as if he, too, didn't want to disturb the singing.

  Dray shook his head, unable to articulate his feelings.

  He cleared his throat and moved in search of the woman who was creating something every Grih would go on bended knee to hear, as casually as if it were nothing.

  She didn't even think she had an audience.

  It had disturbed him before that there were rumors about the other three Earth women. That Rose McKenzie wasn't fond of singing for an audience, and preferred not to do it. That the only one who was happy to take on the role of music maker was Imogen Peters, and that all three preferred to sing at home, when they were alone.

  It had seemed fantastical, but here was Lucy, doing just that.

  “Is there a meaning to her song?” he eventually managed to ask.

  “She is singing about things being free.” The thread of humor in Bane's voice was unmistakable. “I think she's making a joke about access to things in this hold. The best things in life are free, apparently, and include flowers and the moon.”

  He was drawn by the rich melody, and tried to get his mind to concentrate on what Bane was saying. “A joke? With her song?”

  The concept was so foreign, for the first time he got a true sense of her alienness.

  She was not Grih, however much she looked it.

  She was from a completely different society, which had completely different values and customs. One where they would use a song to make a joke.

  “I gather from Rose that you Grih find the idea of not taking song seriously hard to grasp.”

  Dray grunted, because he didn't care to answer. He'd turned a corner of the stacked shelves, more than two stories high, and there she was.

  She was perched on the platform attached to a small automaton, and had been lifted up to a halfway point on the stack.

  She had obviously come to the end of her song, and was holding the last note. She ran out of breath and then laughed as she carefully pulled out a box.

  She started singing again, but instead of the smooth melody of the first song, she inserted a huskiness, a roughness to her voice.

  “Now she's singing a song that is the opposite of the first one. Another joke.” Bane made his voice helpful, and it came from the base of the automaton which had lifted Lucy up, but Dray could tell he was being laughed at.

  “I'm glad you're all right,” he called up to her.

  She gave a squeak of surprise and turned to look down at him. “You're up! Hang on.” She pulled a box out of the stack and then crouched, pressing something to bring the platform down.

  It lowered slowly, carefully, but she seemed impatient with the wait, her face alight with warmth.

  She stepped off it when it was close enough to the ground, and reached out both hands to grip his upper arms, her gaze taking him in.

  “You really look fine.”

  He found his hands were on her hips without conscious thought. “So do you. Bane tells me Rua pushed you off the cliff.”

  Her lips thinned. “He saw an opportunity to leave us all dead, and head back to Fa'allen.”

  “You're sure he's not dead?” Dray cocked his head upward.

  “Sure.” There was a laugh in Bane's answer. “But he's not happy.”

  “He'll need to be brought in as a witness. We don't want to lose him if we're going to the trouble of not killing him.”

  “I informed the security force in the nearby town that he was a military deserter and n
eeded to be taken into custody. He'll be safe enough. Especially as I'm masquerading as a military liaison with the town's security chief.”

  “You are amazing, Bane,” Lucy said, and Dray felt a jolt of surprise at the depth of her sincerity. She was looking at the automaton's tiny lens. She lifted a hand off his arm and blew a kiss in its direction.

  “Well.” Bane sounded a little flustered. “Thank you. Did you find anything that looks good to eat?”

  “Not sure. I've got a couple of boxes that might have something useful in them. Let's take them to the officers' mess.”

  For the first time, Dray noticed there were three boxes on the platform. The automaton tipped the boxes into its storage bin, lifted up into hover mode, and zoomed away.

  Presumably to the officers' mess.

  For a moment he stared down at her, and as if she suddenly became aware of the way they were standing, close as lovers, her eyes lowered, hiding her thoughts.

  He reached for her chin, tilting it up with a finger.

  He said nothing, and she stared up at him, the moment stretching out. It should have been awkward, could have been, but suddenly she smiled, a bright flash of warmth in the dark, cool hold.

  “You're so handsome. It's hard to look right at you.”

  He thought his jaw might have dropped open.

  Her smile widened and she tapped a fist to her heart. “Hits me right here. I keep expecting you to whip out your . . .” She frowned.

  “My?” He was beyond curious and out the other side to turned on. His what?

  She shrugged. “I don't know the Tecran word for it. I don't know if the Tecran have things like this. A weapon that shoots projectiles. Commonly used by your kind on my planet.”

  “My kind?” His jaw was definitely open.

  She laughed. “Mythical beings that look just like you.”

  “If they're mythical, how can you know what they look like?”

  “Good point. And yet, somehow, we do.” Her eyes were laughing now, too. “Some of the details are a little different, but on the whole,” she patted her heart again, “turns out that doesn't lessen the impact.”

  “I am grateful for that.” He kept his tone formal.

  She started to laugh again, but something in his expression must have gotten through to her, because the playfulness cut off, and her eyes went big.