Petroc wanted to vomit, thinking of all the disgustingly fat women inhabiting Core. How many of them were merely living husks, hiding Talroqi who undermined the safety of the colony? The Black Pit was an artificial environment to allow the aliens to survive on a Human-friendly world, while they waited for their mutated offspring to grow strong enough to attack. The ovaries of Human women were a key ingredient to that mutation.
The Talroqi wanted Rhianni because she was linked to Mallachrom--and the Shadows had linked her to Mallachrom to be the focal point to destroy the Black Pit. Petroc shuddered to think what would have happened if Rhianni had been on Mallachrom when the Talroqi infested the planet.
The Talroqi hadn't fled when the Liberation came. They had created an illusion of fleeing after putting their puppets in place to keep the Black Pit hidden in the wilderness. Until it was time to burst open.
How long had pregnant women and obese women lived in Core, openly incubating Talroqi who mutated with every generation, and no one realized what was happening under their noses? How many children who had vanished--with the Shadows blamed--had been fed to the mutant Talroqi queens, and used to further the mutations?
How many more generations until Talroqi hatched who were able to live outside of their hosts, able to breathe Mallachrom's air, survive the intensity of its sun and eat its plants without being poisoned?
How long had the Taken allowed themselves to be driven to the edges of civilization, so they were blind to what was being doing to their world, to other Humans, to their childhood friends? How many women like Janese had been invaded and used up? Why hadn't anyone noticed?
That was a moot question. The answers didn't matter. The battle for Mallachrom ended here and now. No matter what it cost them all.
Of the Council members, their supporters and sycophants under arrest, no one else had erupted. Maybe Janese's Talroqi had emerged because she had died and it panicked.
Petroc considered the basic summary of their situation that Gan had just given him.
"What do they want to do to you for enforcing her orders?" he muttered.
"They want me to step down and hand the military rule over to them," Gan said. "Nothing doing. Rhianni put me in charge. I'm not giving up the post until she tells me to step down."
"They'll fight," Cae said. "He's already disbanded the Core-based Enforcers and sent word around to the outposts to arrest the ones we were never sure about."
"That's fast." Petroc paused and tried to calculate how long he had been with Rhianni. Hours? Days? "What time is it?"
"Barely halfway through the afternoon," Broga said. "We've already had three attempts to break into the arsenal."
"I took the liberty of distributing all those nice, nasty weapons to the outposts. Just in case," Gan added.
"It's a sure bet Montose and the rest had caches waiting, just in case something like this happened." He managed a bitter smile in response to their expressions of dismay. "Think, people! They've had years to prepare. Mallachrom is the launching point for a new invasion."
Petroc wanted all this to be over, to be far away, to be a nightmare. He had waited all his life for Rhianni to come home to Mallachrom. He had waited all his life to make love to her and join his heart and soul and body with hers. Didn't they have the right to more than just a few nights of pleasure and oneness?
"How many Enforcers did we repel in those attacks?" Gan broke the silence.
Petroc was grateful. They needed to get back to business before he drowned in anger.
"Not even a third of the discharged Enforcers," Broga said.
"Are all enemy Enforcers accounted for?" Petroc rested his hands flat on the table, fighting the urge to run all the way to the western sea with Rhianni in his arms. Would that protect her? Probably not. "I'll bet those attacks were to distract us, get us thinking they're only interested in Core. They're drawing our attention so we can't help the outposts."
"They need to get control of Core," Cae retorted.
"They'll try for it, once they have us running crazy, trying to protect the outposts. Spread out our resources, make us panic so we make mistakes." He wished he could be amused at how much military knowledge was his for the taking, thanks to his bond with Rhianni. He hoped it would make a difference.
Cae cursed. He started low and soft, building in volume until his voice broke and he ran out of breath.
In an hour, the orders had gone out. Petroc took Rhianni away from QSE to join Danil in safety.
Rhianni's color had improved ten-fold since Petroc suggested letting Starfire help her. She woke from the healing sleep Cianna had induced as they settled her onto the cot in the healer's cabin at the settlement. Petroc hoped the building would stay quiet, no sounds but the crackling of the fire, no smells but the clean, bitter, sweet aromas of herbal potions brewed at the far end of the cabin. Through the open door, Danil shrieked laughter and raced around with the settlement children.
"Home?" Rhianni whispered, startling him. He almost dropped her, a handspan above the mattress.
"Not yet." He set her down and drew the blanket up to her shoulders. "How are you feeling?"
"So doped up...moriphus?"
"You're a Taken. Anything else would make you sick." He settled down on his knees next to her and tucked the blanket in tight to her sides, with her arms outside.
"Can't go getting sick now." She tried to smile. The effort cost her color. "How bad?"
"Bruised inside. On a liquid diet until Cianna is sure you won't hemorrhage. We'll have to wait for the really fast dances. The fall festivals, just to be careful." He took encouragement from her smile. "You weren't cut at all. It feels like you're torn up inside, but you can still have children, no problem."
"A dozen, I think you said."
"Wish we could work on that right now." He pressed her palm to his lips.
"No time." Her eyes closed, but she smiled.
"You're out of it for the duration, lady captain. I'm in charge now. That means you listen to me until you're up on your feet again. Hear me?"
"I hear," she whispered. "Give the orders."
"First order: you obey Cianna and get well, and keep Danil out of trouble. He listens to you better than he listens to me." He kissed her knuckles. "Second order: when this is all over, we're not getting out of bed for a week."
"Weakling." Laughter touched her eyes when she opened them again. "Two weeks, at the very least."
"Three, how about that?"
"That's better." She sighed, and the sound turned into a cough. He tasted her pain in the air. She pressed her hands flat over her wounded chest to brace it. "We'll never have it easy, will we?" she said when she got her breath back. Sweat dripped down the sides of her forehead. Any moment now, Cianna would appear and shoo Petroc away to let Rhianni rest. He had to get back to QSE and rejoin the defense planning.
"We love each other, and we've worked too hard to give up now."
"Dad always warned me, battlefield marriages never work."
"We weren't married on the battlefield, Rhianni." He turned her hand in his grip, so their thumbs and matching scars pressed tight against each other. "Remember our oaths? We were married when we were little kids. It's just been a long time before we could have our honeymoon."
"Lousy idea of party entertainment," she groaned.
Petroc laughed. His chest ached from the reflected pain gnawing her with jagged teeth. He still had to laugh.
"Anni, I love you so much."
"Love you, too."
"Dada!" Danil shrieked, and scampered through the open doorway. "Lookee!"
Behind him, Starfire sauntered through the doorway. The Shadow looked back and forth between Rhianni and Petroc, blue eyes sparkling with visible satisfaction. Then, he came over to the bed, settled down on the floor, put his head on the edge of the mattress and shoved Petroc away from Rhianni.
"All right. I can take a hint." Petroc released her hand and stood. "You take it easy, hear me? If you do anything
to get hurt, I'll whip your butt until you can't sit for a year."
"Then why did you bring me out here? I'm the one who's going to blast the Black Pit into the next millennium. You want me here, ready, if it all finally breaks."
"That's why I love you, Anni. You read my mind even without our bond." Petroc fought the urge to drop down on the cot and wrap himself around her, one last time.
He refused to believe they wouldn't have anything beyond a few nights of sweet, intoxicating passion.
"Starfire's healing me. I'll be ready. The time's almost here, isn't it?" she whispered.
"It's almost here, and then it'll be over." He brushed sweaty strands of hair out of her face. Rhianni closed her eyes under his touch and smiled as he kissed her goodbye.
"Petroc?" The whisper caught him as he bent to pick up Danil. "A good Rover forgets about personal things until after the mission is finished." She took a deep breath. "Finish it for me?"
"Anything you want." Petroc carried Danil outside, hugging the boy tight.
The sled waited for him. Petroc hated the sight of it. He hugged Danil once more, then set him down.
"You take good care of--" He smiled. "Remember that talk we had, Danil, about Rhianni taking care of you and you taking care of me? Things are kind of turned around now. I can't be here, so you have to take care of Rhianni for me, understand?"
"Bad men hurt her bad." The boy nodded, eyes somber.
"She's your mama now, so you take good care of her."
"My mama?" Danil's mouth dropped open and delight made his eyes bright and wide.
"All yours. When she wakes up, you call her Mama, and I know she'll feel a whole lot better."
Petroc knew he wouldn't be all right until it was over. But he could borrow a little joy from his son. He held onto it as he climbed into the sled and headed back to QSE and the battle that waited.
Chapter 21
"Is there something you want to tell me?" Cianna asked, when she withdrew her hands from resting on Rhianni's sore abdomen.
The drastic changes in her now allowed Rhianni to see flickers of blue power, like tiny, super-hot flames, on the tips of Cianna's fingers when she used her empathy. She had watched, fascinated, as her friend monitored the progress of her healing. Tiny flames had danced all up and down the length of her body, sometimes sinking into her flesh, sometimes bobbing in the air above her.
"Tell you?" Rhianni wondered if she had swallowed too much moriphus, because she somehow couldn't guess what her friend meant.
"Not to be too blunt or too delicate, but if you haven't been sleeping with Petroc..." Cianna shrugged. "Well, you're not the person I thought you were, if you betrayed him."
"You can tell I've been having sex?" She winced as the force of her words irritated her bruised flesh.
"A lot more than that."
"Not just having sex." Rhianni paused to catch her breath. She grinned, unaccountably feeling shy. "Petroc and I are married. He took me to that place by the river, where he says--"
"All Taken spend their wedding nights." Cianna's face glowed and she grasped Rhianni's hands, squeezing them. "I'm so happy for you."
"I'm pretty happy for me, too."
"When did it happen?"
"Four...five days ago, I guess. I'm not really sure what day it is."
"Only four or five days." Cianna nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. "That explains why I had to look three times before I could be sure. I've never monitored someone so soon."
"Cianna? What are you talking about?"
"I'm just curious." Her grin widened until Rhianni wondered if her face would split in half. "How long is Rover maternity leave?"
Rhianni just stared for several moments, not sure she heard right, and then if she did, what it had to do with her. Then the realization hit her like a fist in her gut. She sat up, despite the screams of pain through her chest and abdomen.
"I'm pregnant," she whispered. Both hands curved over her bandage-swathed belly. "That's impossible. I still have months left on my contraceptive implant."
"Since when does artificial medicine win in an argument against empathy?" Cianna laughed even as she pretended to be offended by her doubts.
Rhianni gaped, trying to reconcile two different versions of what she considered reality. Then she remembered the mental and emotional waves she had endured. Exactly as she had felt when her contraceptive ran out without an available replacement.
A memory flicked through her mind, hard-edged and bright. She once again saw the Shadows gathered around her and Petroc as they lay tangled together, exhausted and humming with the glory of their first lovemaking.
"The Shadows did it to us," she whispered. "They surrounded us after we made love the first time. I had this feeling that they were mightily pleased with us. They wanted us together; they wanted us to make love. They changed me, so I could get pregnant, but I just can't figure out why."
"The Shadows don't do anything without a reason. Sometimes it takes years for us to figure it out." Cianna frowned and her gaze turned introspective. "They want you to be pregnant, that's a given. Why?"
Rhianni shivered and pressed her hands more firmly into her belly. She thought of all the grossly overweight women in Core, and the women who had been pregnant far too long. Petroc had theorized that the Talroqi used the women's ovaries and wombs. What if being pregnant protected her from them? What did the Shadows know about the Black Pit and Talroqi mutant queens?
The Hall was a strategic spot, a matter of pride and morale. Whoever held the physical center of government on Mallachrom held the colony. Petroc and Gan returned to The Hall with a mixed unit of Enforcers and Rovers after establishing defensive units around each outpost. They had to hold here, no matter what it took.
When help came from off-planet, it would head for Core.
That night, Petroc stood in the abandoned, darkened foyer of the main entrance to The Hall and looked out over the sparsely lit plaza. Just before the darkness swallowed up the decorative gardens, the edge of the pavement seemed to drop off into nothingness. That image perfectly matched how he felt. All these years since the Taken began their long vigil over the Black Pit, he had been able to predict and plan and keep his feet firmly planted on the ground and know he was doing right. Now, there was no way of telling.
Somewhere out there, Council Enforcers moved in, hiding in shadows and abandoned buildings. All friendly Enforcer units reported directly to him by guarded wave communicator. Petroc had ordered silence on all channels, except in grave emergency.
Rhianni hated the quiet. She hated the feeling that something hovered high above the cabin, waiting to pounce. She knew the Taken settlement lay beyond the enemy's sensors or reach. That didn't make her feel any better. Her new awareness of the Black Pit's contents made things worse.
She sat up slowly, braced on her arms to take the pressure off her aching abdomen. Between moriphus, the accelerated healing Starfire had granted her and the bandages wrapped around her from armpits to hips, she was allowed to sit up and even try taking a few steps. Moving still made her dizzy, but she had to fight it. She had to force herself to heal, to be mobile if anything happened. Nothing was sure anymore.
Besides, she didn't have just Danil and the children of this hidden settlement to protect, and the future of the entire planet. She now had her own baby depending on her. The thought of the tiny life inside her, just a few days old, made her shiver in soul-sucking terror even as she wanted to giggle and dance like a giddy child. She couldn't wait to tell Petroc, but she didn't dare distract him by contacting him through their soul-bond.
"Mama?" Danil peeked around the screen set up around her cot. He grinned at her from under mussed hair hanging into his eyes. He loved calling her Mama, and hearing him say it was better medicine than anything she could imagine.
Anything but Petroc's kisses.
"What are you doing out of bed?" She held out her arms to him. It didn't matter that Danil's hugs jolted her. She needed the warmth
of him in her arms. The thought of having children with Petroc filled her with a giddy, nervous energy that gave her hope to look beyond tomorrow.
"Dada said I was supposed to watch out for you."
"Oh, really? What else did Dada say?" She helped him hitch up onto the edge of the cot to sit.
"Pray lots, be good and make sure you don't do anything stupid." His grin faded. "You're not stupid, are you?"
"I try not to be."
"How come we got so many Shadows, Mama?"
"So many Shadows?"
"Uh huh. They're all over. Starfire talks to them. They go away and then more come back."
Flickers of her broken dreams filled her mind. Thousands of Shadows gathered in clumps around the entire planet. Their eyes glowed blue. A haze of blue enfolded Mallachrom, then shattered into a rain of arrowheads that filled the Black Pit with fire.
She held the bow that shot the arrows.
She had to be on her feet for this.
"Mama?" Danil slid off the edge of the bed, chewing on his pinkie, uncertainty dimming his eyes.
"It's all right, Danil. Help me go out to see." She slid her legs over the side of the bed.
Reports of fighting at all the outposts came in, but only minor hit-and-run, petty destructive raids spattered The Hall. Nothing the defenders couldn't handle. Petroc and Gan listened to the silence inside while the storm raged outside.
When would the attack come? There were reports of the offense pulling back at nearly every outpost. The weapons and fighters had to go somewhere. Taken held The Hall, which meant they held Core, which meant they held Mallachrom. The Council had to take The Hall back from Rhianni's forces.
"Danil..." Rhianni couldn't take her gaze off what lay before her. It was like a bad dream she had lived through a dozen times already. She tightened her grip on Starfire's ruff of fur and another surge of energy pushed away the wobbly sensation that came with shock. "Go back."
Shadows of Mallachrom, Book 1: Blue Fire Page 23