Shadows of Mallachrom, Book 1: Blue Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  What had Janese been saying about crazy Taken attacking settlements? Maybe this was part of it?

  Or did someone just want her to think it was part of the problem on Mallachrom?

  But that would mean someone suspected her true purpose here and had used Janese to set her up for the attack.

  All this analyzing gave her a headache.

  "No, thank you, I'm fine," she protested for the tenth time as narrow-faced Dr. Carr insisted on examining her.

  "They might have drugged you," he insisted, looking to her grandmother for support. "We should check you."

  "Drugged? How? They never got a chance to touch me."

  "Hypo-spray." The granite-faced Enforcer commander produced the blue metallic object Rhianni had seen go flying. "It looks like it still has a full load, though. You're good, Captain." He gave her a nod of respect, a slight smile easing some of the darkness from his face.

  "You're lucky." Dr. Carr stepped back out of the circle of concerned upper-crust gathered around Rhianni, Janese and Mistress Shoreel.

  "What do you think it could be, Commander?" If Mistress Shoreel had sounded petulant instead of sweetly concerned, Rhianni would have believed it. The grandmother she remembered cared more about a social occasion being ruined than any disaster on a personal level.

  "The hypo-spray's a common weapon for the rebels among the Taken, ma'am." He glanced quickly at Rhianni and then away again. "I'd say it was a heavy tranquilizer, maybe moriphus. In its pure form, it can knock an adult male into a coma in less than ten minutes."

  "It could kill a baby," Janese whispered. "They were after me, weren't they? Oh, why won't they leave me alone? I'm not a traitor! They have no right telling me whose baby I can have!"

  "There, there, dear," Mistress Shoreel crooned. She wrapped an arm around Janese. "Could someone help the dear child home? I'm afraid this evening has been too much for her."

  Rhianni nearly volunteered to do it, as an excuse to leave the party early. Then that shiver of warning ran up her spine, and she kept her mouth shut.

  She had received too many contradictory messages since arriving on Mallachrom, just like the contradictory messages the Fleet and Rovers received during the war. Government officials had claimed all was well on the planet, and then non-registered carrier bands told the true plight of the colony world. Only after the liberation did the Fleet learn that some government officials had become puppets, mind-controlled by Talroqi.

  That didn't mean the government was again a dupe for the enemy. Rhianni had to keep that in mind. No matter how much she wanted to believe the Taken were the victims.

  Someone had searched her gear. Rhianni stood in front of her dresser in the guest room of her grandmother's house while that shiver of warning raced down her spine. The dresser drawer hung open almost two centimeters. It had been tightly closed when she left for the party four hours ago. Using the stylus for her datapad, she caught hold of the drawer pull and dragged it open.

  Her boot liners were in the middle of the drawer instead of on the right side where she left them. Other than that, nothing was undisturbed. Should she be perturbed or amused that no one had apparently pawed through her underwear?

  Thank goodness her trunks were with Burkan.

  Someone had searched her gear, meaning they either didn't believe her story about rest leave, or they wanted to ensure she told the truth. There was nothing they could find out, even if they downloaded the decoy datapad she had brought with her. There was nothing worthwhile on this pad other than flight schedules for her trip to Mallachrom, a few routing addresses and bits of useless data. All of it loaded simply to support her cover story.

  She sank down on the end of the double-wide bed with its luxurious cover of synthe-silk and thought hard.

  What if that tranquilizer wasn't meant for Janese?

  What if it wasn't tranquilizer, but poison?

  Or something worse, like paquilon, to open her mind to anyone who wanted to question her, with the added attraction of paralyzing her for days.

  It's a good thing I'm getting out of here in the morning. Rhianni had always hated cities. They were far more dangerous, in her experience, than the most untamed wilderness. She would rather take her chances with a pango or other vicious Mallachrom beasts than the murderers, schemers and traitors likely lurking in Core. The way she felt right now, she might even enjoy dodging a filthy, insane pango, with its tusks and dirty, wiry fur, tiny red eyes and rancid odor. She would face it with a long spear rather than a gun, and hunt it like ancient aristocrats on the long-vanished Human homeworld hunted its milder distant relative, the wild boar. Anything to help her relieve the tension coiling in her gut and her muscles would be welcome.

  Petroc floated through a haze of blue fire, drifting without purpose. He ignored the echo whispers as others used the Merger to communicate. No one waited for him to call. He'd only entered the Merger tonight to listen and test the mental atmosphere, to see if what others had reported were true.

  Scouts had ventured down into the scorched plain where the Black Pit seethed, and reported the poisonous acid mass had expanded at least two meters in every direction. Marker stones had vanished in the corroding leading edge of gas. Those who monitored the local animals reported the expansion happened so quickly, no creature had a chance to escape. Rapidly liquefying corpses littered the ground a dozen meters out from the visible edge of the Black Pit.

  Something big was about to happen. Petroc shivered as he thought about Shaina's vision the other night. There were only two possible explanations. Preliminary reports from sympathetic Enforcers said the only newcomer to arrive on Mallachrom at the time of the Black Pit's eruption was Rhianni. Either her arrival or the return of Dr. Carr had provoked that reaction. Or the other explanation, the one Petroc preferred, was that someone belonging to Mallachrom had done something to affect the Pit and its contents.

  Since the Taken had the Merger, wasn't it conceivable that their enemy had some similar mental joining? Petroc and the Inner Circle sensed a growing malevolence in the mental atmosphere. They sensed that if they strayed beyond the protective blue fire, they would be swallowed whole.

  What was the worst choice? That someone who could do the Taken real harm had returned to Mallachrom to resume his campaign to take away their rights? Or that the Black Pit wanted Rhianni?

  "Have to get her out of here," Petroc said to no one.

  Ripples of deeper blue spattered out through the haze of the Merger in reaction to the sudden gut-wrenching ache that went through him. Petroc relived that moment when Rhianni smiled and threw her arms around him. The warmth, the sweet scent, the solid reality of her again drove his breath away.

  If Rhianni hadn't left Mallachrom, she would be a Taken. Petroc would have claimed her as his mate years ago. They would be lying in each other's arms right that moment, their bodies asleep and their minds flying through the Merger together. Danil would be their son.

  He wouldn't be alone in a clamoring crowd, his spirit turning to ice even as the battle for survival grew hotter with every turn of the seasons.

  Rhianni's face formed out of the sparks and streaks of darker fire in the Merger haze. Petroc stared, indulging his hunger for her even as he wondered how it happened.

  The rest of her body appeared. She wore something sleeveless, dark green, hanging past her knees. Eyes closed, she floated, with one hand tucked under her cheek to pillow it.

  "Rhianni," Petroc whispered. His voice cracked.

  Her eyes opened. A smile crept across her face and her body drifted into an upright position. "Roc?" She laughed and held out a hand to him, beckoning him closer.

  Her smile faded. A whimper slipped out between her lips. She shivered and her beckoning gesture turned into a warding, both palms flat facing him, to push him away.

  "Not again," she whispered. Her eyes widened and she froze, then her image shattered in a cloud of blue sparks.

  Petroc sat up in bed, gasping as if he had run to the to
p of Jahagon Mountain without stopping. Sweat beaded his forehead and dripped into his eyes.

  "Stupid, stupid, stupid," he growled, and slammed his fists into his thighs.

  In the early days, when the Taken were just learning to use the Merger to communicate, others had done what Petroc did. They had imagined a non-Taken with such emotional intensity while in the Merger, they had actually contacted that person's sleeping mind.

  What had he done, touching Rhianni's dreams? Had he brought her to the attention of whatever malevolence lived in the Black Pit? She had said, 'Not again.' What did that mean?

  What would she remember of her dreams? Would Petroc only cause trouble if he used that encounter to try to persuade her to leave? The Rhianni Day he remembered didn't like others protecting her. She had to know all the details and face all the risks. How much had that characteristic been intensified by her training in the Rovers?

  The sooner Rhianni returned to her life in the Rover Corps, the better for them all.

  "Look up data on dream interpretation," Rhianni whispered into the dictation mike on her data pad. She perched in the wide windowsill of her room in her grandmother's house and stared out over the sleeping city.

  Despite the light of the twin moons and the sparks of multi-colored light throughout the orderly sprawl, it appeared colorless and cold compared to the fiery blue haze that had filled her dream. In her imagination, sparks still danced on her fingertips.

  She closed her eyes and again saw Petroc, hanging in the sizzling blue, staring at her with wide, hungry eyes. She wanted him to fly across the gap between them and hold her. Her heart skipped a few beats at the memory. She had never felt so hungry for a touch at any previous time in her life. She couldn't blame this on the lonely aching that had settled inside since her father's death. She suspected that retreating into the arms of her dream-lover wouldn't soothe her tonight. This was a hunger akin to being torn in half. The jagged, seeping, raw edges begged for reunion.

  Rhianni opened her eyes and studied the scar on her thumb. She felt that dropping sensation again, the guilt that came from knowing she had indeed forgotten her promise to Petroc. She could have left her father's squadron years ago, when she'd reached her majority. She could have come back to Mallachrom, and her father would have supported her decision. Like a coward, she had chosen to forget her promise and bury herself in trying to save the universe.

  It really shouldn't have surprised her that Petroc had shrugged off their childhood blood-vow as nothing important. If she hadn't valued it, why should he?

  Chapter 6

  Danil attacked two seconds after Rhianni walked into Burkan's office late the next morning.

  She had walked from the landing field, musing on her ambivalent feelings about her grandmother. After all, the woman had loaned her a two-man sled for as long as she needed. Meetings with her Rover team leaders would be simpler to arrange and more numerous. Yet the gift had come from her grandmother. Rhianni couldn't decide whether to feel ashamed or amused.

  Danil shrieked her name and leaped on her as she stepped through the door. She managed to take one more step before she found herself hobbled, the little boy's arms and legs wrapped tight around her from the knees down. She burst out laughing and reached down to untangle him. Then she saw the three other people in the office.

  Burkan, Petroc, and a tall, square-built young man in an Enforcer uniform stood at a desk, studying some papers. The laughter died on her lips as she met the stranger's blue-gray gaze, despite the amusement she saw there. From all she had heard, Enforcers didn't know how to laugh. They also weren't friendly toward Taken. Had she walked into a big problem unfolding? Was the Enforcer here to cause Petroc trouble?

  "Why didn't anybody tell me you'd met Rhianni already?" Burkan complained. He stepped around the desk and bent to help her pry a giggling Danil free.

  "Danil was pestering her in the cemetery yesterday." Petroc reached out to take his son from Burkan.

  "Pester, my foot!" Rhianni decided if he could be relaxed around the Enforcer, so could she. She snatched Danil from Burkan and swung the boy around so he straddled her hip. Danil whooped with glee and wrapped his arms tight around her neck. "I happen to like little boys."

  "I never claimed to be grown up," the Enforcer said with a wide grin. He stepped over to join them.

  "Oops." Burkan shook his head. "Rhianni, this is Gan Kamp. You remember Lorn Kamp, who did all the supply runs when you were all children? Gan's his sister's boy. Orphaned in the war. He and Petroc are my right hands."

  "Two right hands?" Her brain scrambled through the implications. She had to assume Gan was friendly. "Is that better or worse than two left feet?"

  "She's going to fit in here too well," Gan said with a grin. "You ready?"

  "Dada, I can go this time?" Danil chirped.

  "Not this time." Petroc reached for the boy, who pouted but let his father take him from Rhianni's arms. "You have to stay here and help Uncle Burk, remember?"

  "Rhianni can play with me."

  "She probably has things to do." Petroc avoided her gaze as he spoke.

  Why? Because he did want her to watch out for the boy, or because he didn't? Danil's wide-eyed, entreating expression caught at her heart.

  "I'm just going to get re-acquainted with the place," she said. "I'd like some nice company while I move back into my parents' house."

  Danil let out a triumphant yelp and leaped from Petroc's arms into Rhianni's embrace again.

  "I think I'm jealous," Gan muttered.

  "You can't move back in there," Burkan protested. "It's been closed up ever since you and your folks left. It's probably filthy, no power in the cells, no water in the purifier system, not a stick of furniture left. There was a lot of borrowing, during the Liberation. They were short on everything."

  "So I'll stay in the boarding house until everything's clean. Shouldn't take me more than a day. Want to help?" she said, touching her nose to Danil's and wringing giggles and assent from the little boy.

  "You're not staying in any boarding house. I have five bedrooms here nobody's using."

  "Five." Rhianni swallowed down a chuckle. "What do you need five bedrooms for out here?"

  "They had big plans for QSE when they first built it," Petroc said. "Just like everything else on this planet." He stepped over to a desk and picked up a coat slung over the chair. "You're sure it's all right, watching out for this wriggler?"

  "The most fun I've had in years, I think."

  "It's eight, anyway," Burkan said. "Petroc, Danil and I use three, so there's five for you to choose from."

  "Three--Petroc lives--you live here?" Rhianni wished she didn't feel like she'd tripped over her tongue.

  "The only way to keep this troublemaker out of trouble," the ex-Rover said. He gave a teasing tug to Danil's hair and stepped around Rhianni to open the door.

  In moments, Petroc and Gan were outside, running for the landing field and a four-man sled. They called farewells; Petroc warned Danil to be good for Rhianni.

  "They live with you," Rhianni muttered, as the door closed. "Burk, something is going on here I don't understand."

  "Yeah, I can imagine." He lifted Danil from her arms and put the boy on the ground with a swat to his behind. "Go get us some of that berry bread from breakfast." He settled down at the largest desk in the office, put his feet up, and didn't speak until the boy had toddled out of the room. "Gan is all right. He's passed up two promotions so he could stay here and help. We have more Taken settlers coming through QSE just because they know the Enforcers won't be invading their privacy on trumped-up charges."

  "That's good. So, Petroc and Danil live here." She settled down on the edge of his desk and looked around the cluttered office.

  "Kind of a shock, seeing him as a father, eh?" Burkan chuckled, earning a glare from her. "A shock for him, too. It was the only thing he could do. Couldn't let that little guy land in an orphanage. Not with the prejudice against children who have Taken for
parents."

  "Orphanage?"

  "He didn't tell you anything, did he?" Burkan opened his mouth to say something scalding, to judge by the sparks in his eyes. Then Danil burst through the door with a wooden platter clutched in his hands and six pieces of a purple, heavy-looking bread wobbling on the slanted surface. "That's my boy. Put it right here and hop on up." He pushed out from the desk so Danil could climb up on his lap and reach the cutting board when it sat on his desk.

  "Burkan--"

  "Try some." He handed her a piece, made sure Danil had the biggest piece, and took one for himself. "Reesa was a Taken. Just as closed-mouthed about it as everyone else, but you get the feeling. I swear if it weren't for the deaths of so many people, the Taken are glad it happened to them. But that's neither here nor there." Burkan made a vague gesture toward the forest on the other side of the landing field, meaning the wilderness of Mallachrom.

  "Dilan was with one of the big freighter groups that helped with the Liberation and the rebuilding. He took one look at Reesa, and it was like they'd been made for each other. Not so unusual among the Taken, mind you, but for an outsider and one of our girls... Those two were one heart and mind from the moment they laid eyes on each other. When they got married, Dilan was welcomed like he was family." Burkan's fond smile faded. "Which, if you really think about it, is the truth. Most of the kids lost everybody they had. Older brothers and sisters who were in Core or away from home or who resisted when the Shadows came, they died. So they're all one big family."

  "It was unusual, then, that they welcomed Dilan?" Rhianni had to ask, thinking about Janese and her murdered husband.

  "Don't think so. There have been a few other mixed marriages, but for the most part, the Taken only marry among themselves. Why?"

  "I met Janese in Core. You remember Janese Brohan?"