Saryn of Elisia

by StarAndrea

  “This would be easier if it wasn’t face to face,” Lyris’ voice said. “So he doesn’t think I’m influencing him.”

  “It’s like you don't want to make me happy,” Kris said. “I'm disappointed.”

  “I prefer face to face,” Saryn said. Empaths might be deceptive and difficult, depending on what stories one believed, but he was better at recognizing intent in person.

  “Well, I don’t,” Lyris said.

  “I don’t believe that’s the truth,” Saryn said.

  “Do you want to do this on your own comms?” Kris asked. “Jenna and I don’t have to be here for this.”

  Saryn glanced over at Jenna, who smiled at him and propped herself up on her elbow again. He offered her the comm without a word. “I kind of do,” she said. “I mean, it’s not my bed, but I am sleeping in it. Allegedly.”

  Saryn smiled.

  “It’s not like we didn’t know you’re sleeping together.” Kris sounded irritable all of a sudden, which was notable for her, given that it seemed to be her default state. For it to register by comparison, they must have done something to increase her reactivity. “Why do you think I called you looking for him?”

  “Rudeness?” Saryn suggested.

  “Efficiency?” Jenna said at the same time.

  “You did say no one had my comm code,” Saryn agreed. “Mysterious though that seems for a group of people with unlimited security clearance.”

  “If you meet him face to face,” Kris said, “will he know how you’re feeling?”

  The question made Saryn frown. He wasn’t sure how well Jenna could perceive the expression in darkness, but she definitely shrugged, so she was clearly aware of his confusion. “So I would assume,” he said.

  “I’m not talking to you,” Kris’ voice said sharply. “Lyris, I’m not losing you over this. Either talk to him or let me kick him off the team. I don’t care which.”

  Saryn sat up, and he was aware of Jenna pushing the covers back beside him. “Why did Lyris ask to be reassigned?”

  “Oh, now he asks,” Kris said.

  “If he leaves, she’ll leave,” Lyris said. “It’s easier to replace me than both of them.”

  “No it isn’t,” Kris said. “You’re part of this team; they’re not. You chose them, Lyris. Say the word and they’re gone.”

  “Why are you leaving?” Saryn demanded.

  “Because I made a mistake,” Lyris snapped. It was the harshest Saryn had heard him sound, and if they had been standing in the same room he might have been able to guess why. As it was, he could only assume that Lyris objected to him and Jenna sharing a bed.

  “Right,” Kris said. “See? So what? We all make mistakes. They can’t keep the enhancers if I say they have to surrender them, and we’ll call it a test of the system. Equipment failure, biological rejection, I don’t care. Timmin’s creative. He’ll make it sound good.”

  Lyris’ voice was so quiet Saryn almost couldn’t hear him over the comm. “Thank you,” he murmured, probably to Kris. “But you need them. I wasn’t wrong about that. They’ll be better with those ships than any of us… and you weren’t wrong either. You don’t need two empaths.”

  Saryn found Jenna’s hand without thinking and squeezed it before he let go, standing up and taking her comm with him. “Where are you,” he said. “Lyris. Do me the honor of speaking with you before you go. I would appreciate the chance to express my gratitude for your intervention.”

  “Where do you think he is?” Kris demanded.

  Saryn waited, but she didn’t continue. He glanced back at Jenna, moving around the room on the other side of the bed, and he felt her look back even when he couldn’t see it. “Am I required to guess?” he asked at last. “I see little point in listing possibilities when you could simply answer the question.”

  “I’ll come to you,” Lyris said.

  “Oh, don’t do that,” Kris said. “He’s not that impressive. Don’t you think his ego is big enough already?”

  “No,” Lyris’ voice said. “I think if he were a little more confident, I would have picked exactly the right person.”

  Saryn couldn’t tell if that was directed at him or not, and he saw nothing good that would come of acknowledging it. “Should I assume you know where I live?” he asked instead.

  “Yeah,” Lyris said. “You should also assume that a lot of people are going to see me visiting you in the middle of the night. You okay with that?”

  “One moment,” Saryn said. He looked in Jenna’s direction again. She’d stopped moving, but he was relatively certain she was wearing more than she had been before. She also knew what he was asking.

  “Okay with me if it’s okay with you,” she said, very quietly.

  “Oh, good,” Kris muttered, indicating she knew exactly what was going on. “They’re already making joint decisions. I thought you’d just met.”

  “I thought you were a team,” Saryn said sharply. “We know how to work together. Do you?”

  “None of us are displaying great team-building skills today,” Lyris replied, and it occurred to Saryn that he was probably holding the comm now. That would explain why Kris’ voice was suddenly less obvious. It also made Lyris feel closer, somehow, and Saryn didn’t notice that his grip was relaxing until after it had happened.

  “Me most of all,” Lyris was saying. “I’ll come over and see if I can explain, all right?”

  “This isn’t on you,” Kris answered, before Saryn could. “He asked to talk to you. I’m just as happy to fire them both. Don’t make this another cause you have to martyr yourself for.”

  “You know me,” Lyris said, and it sounded like he was smiling for the first time that night. “My favorite cause is making other people happy.”

  “That’s a terrible cause,” Kris’ voice said.

  “Who makes you happy?” Saryn asked.

  They were both still listening, but there was an obvious pause before Kris said, “See, that’s what bothers me the most: I can’t decide if I like him or hate him.”

  “You’d like him if it weren’t for me,” Lyris said.

  “Or I’d hate him if it weren’t for you,” Kris replied. “I’m going back to bed. And I’m not going to reassign you before tomorrow, so make it work.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not going to reassign me at all,” Lyris said with an audible sigh.

  “I’ve been saying,” Kris agreed. “Give me my comm.”

  The comm in Saryn’s hand lit up orange, with a bright number “2” flashing over the entire screen. It made a quiet whistling sound that was nonetheless alarming. “What is this?” he asked, tipping the device toward Jenna.

  She was right next to him when she said, “It’s Timmin. He’s calling everyone.”

  There was Kris behind the whistling sound, saying, “Timmin’s in trouble. Everyone with enhancers, get to Ranger Operations now.”

  “We should go,” Jenna said. “That’s an emergency signal. It could be raiders.”

  It wasn’t very informative if all it conveyed was “emergency,” but Saryn kept the thought to himself. “Emmi,” he said instead. “Follow us with medium light, please. Is Mirine still home?”

  Emmi confirmed, and the light that came up was bright enough that he checked the privacy filter before he looked for Jenna. She’d been dressing while he was trying to understand what was happening. She looked more beautiful now than she had when she arrived.

  “Do you have priority transport?” Kris’ voice was asking. “Saryn? I can clear you for teleportal overrides remotely if necessary.”

  “I have priority,” Saryn replied, looking for his shirt.

  “He just doesn’t use it,” Lyris added.

  “Until recently,” Saryn said, pausing as though he could see Lyris through the comm, “I believed I was too easily accosted at teleportals. Now I realize the habit of physical transport is just as vulnerable to interception.”

  “You know what would help with that,” Lyris repli
ed. “Empathic sensitivity.”

  “Call him on your own comm,” Kris said. “Jenna, Saryn, if you’re not there when we arrive then we’re leaving without you. Let’s go.”

  The link disconnected, but Timmin’s “2” remained a bright and alarming orange in the middle of the display. “Is there something I should do to acknowledge this?” Saryn asked, offering it to Jenna again.

  “I think we’re doing it,” Jenna said, taking the comm from him and tapping the number experimentally. It didn’t change. “Yeah, I have no idea. I got the ‘what to do in case of emergency’ speech, but not the one about what to do once the emergency is over.”

  “How likely is it to be raiders?” Saryn asked. “The emergency designation seems potentially…”

  “Wide-ranging?” Jenna suggested before he could finish. “Covers a lot of ground?”

  “Not very informative,” Saryn said.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, pulling on her boots without sitting down. “No kidding. I assume we’ll get updates when they have them.”

  “I assume that if we get an update from Kris before Timmin it’s because she’s arrived wherever he is,” Saryn said. “And we will be left behind.”

  “I’m ready to go,” Jenna said pointedly. “You need to tell your sister where you’re going?”

  “She will either be asleep or waiting by the door,” Saryn said. “You dress faster than I do.”

  She was sitting and watching him, possibly to make a point about their relative efficiency, but that made her smile. “To be fair, I started sooner than you did. Socks?”

  She’d found them without appearing to move, and he wasn’t going to question observation skills like that. “Thank you,” he said. “Do you dress for the surface even when you’re below ground?”

  “Yes,” Jenna said. She didn’t seem surprised by the question. “Do you usually talk to an audio link like it’s a visual one?”

  He glanced over at her, but he knew what she meant as soon as she said it. “Probably,” he admitted. “I prefer to give important communication my full attention.”

  “What communication isn’t important?” she asked. “And I mean that, but not if it slows you down.”

  “It will slow me down,” he said with a smile. “This isn’t unimportant, if that makes it less offensive. Remind me later.”

  “Will do,” she said. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” he said, taking a second shirt from the back of the door before he opened it for her. The light followed them into the hallway, but there was no Mirine by the front door. “The teleportal in the square?”

  “It’s the closest,” she agreed. “How do you feel about running?”

  “I think it will draw attention Kris won’t appreciate if she tries to fire us tomorrow,” Saryn said.

  “Right,” Jenna said. “So that’s a yes to running. Let’s go.”

  They ran. They drew less attention than they might have, mostly due to the hour, but any priority teleportal access was a matter of public record. He watched Jenna’s come up as “Ranger, Unrestricted” and waited until she’d disappeared to enter his own: “Diplomatic, Native.” Both clearances would be recorded on their way to the same destination.

  She was waiting for him on the other side, and they ran again.

  The pilot entrance to Ranger Operations opened for them, but it was deserted. “Kel’s probably downstairs,” Jenna said. “You think we got here first?”

  “I’m certain we did not,” Saryn said.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Oh, hey,” Lyris said. “You showed up.”

  Saryn faltered, catching the lift and turning back, looking for someone who should have arrived with Kris. The hall was empty, and he wasn’t missing anything. There was no one there.

  “You okay?” Jenna asked.

  “Just hearing voices,” Saryn said, clearing the door to let it close behind them.

  I can hear you in my head, he thought. He had no telepathic training, but that hadn’t seemed to matter before. He wondered why he only heard fully formed sentences from Lyris, and he could only hope the same was true when Lyris heard him thinking.

  “Does that happen often?” Jenna asked. She was watching him with an amused expression as they descended, but it wasn’t judgmental or condescending. Whatever she thought of his politics, he was right about her opinion of him personally: she liked him. The certainty hadn’t faded when they left his bedroom.

  “Only since I met Lyris,” he admitted.

  Great, he heard Lyris think. So we can’t even be in the same building without stepping on each other’s thoughts. I’m going to have to move.

  “Is it Lyris?” She said it like she hadn’t assumed, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. “That you heard?” she added. “Just now?”

  She wasn’t questioning him as the cause, then. Just the practical effect.

  “Yes,” Saryn said. “I think he’s overreacting slightly.”

  The door opened on his words, and he knew without question that they’d all heard him. Lyris, at least, knew what he was talking about. “You walked out of a room because I was in it,” he said.

  “You told me to,” Saryn retorted.

  “Fly now,” Kris said. “Argue later.”

  “Anyone want to tell us why we’re flying?” Jenna asked, but she grabbed her flight suit and chased after Kris without waiting for the answer.

  Saryn didn’t mean to get in Lyris’ way, but he either thought too much or too little compared to Jenna and he forgot his helmet. Turning back meant that they were suddenly face to face. It might be important, but it had his full attention, so he blurted out, “Why do you want to leave?”

  “Because I can’t stand that you pretend not to be an empath,” Lyris told him.

  It wasn’t at all what he’d expected, and he didn’t think before he said, “I’m not pretending.”

  Lyris scoffed. “How nice for you,” he said. “Get out of my way.”

  Saryn stepped aside, startled by the change in attitude. He picked up his helmet and shrugged his jacket over his other shoulder as he headed for the RAVs. “Where’s Timmin?” he heard Jenna ask.

  “Out there with them,” Kris replied, and that was all he heard in the scramble for vehicles and launch order.

  “Hello, Saryn.” The RAV greeted him as soon as he had his helmet on, and later he wouldn’t be able to remember if he was even inside the vehicle when he heard its voice. “Engine cold start sequence initiated.”

  “RAV 4, thank you,” he said automatically. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “RAV 2 triggered an emergency signal after its fighter wing was ambushed during a routine inter-system handoff,” the voice in his ear replied. “Standard procedure is to provide immediate reinforcement.”

  “Inter-system handoff,” Saryn repeated, watching his heads-up display come alive as the controls powered up. As he understood it, the Border patrols shared a small overlap as part of their regular deployment. “Which system?”

  “Calijyt fighters provided the balance,” the AI replied. “They sent a similar distress call and expect to be met by their own team at the coordinates of the handoff.”

  “Is it typical for both teams to respond?” Saryn asked.

  “Each wing is reinforced by the Ranger team associated with its planet of origin,” the AI said. “System handoffs and other points of wing convergence are anomalies in terms of coverage.”

  He was impressed by its ability to answer the question he had intended, rather than literally the one he had asked. “So we’re sending twice as much reinforcement as they asked for,” he said.

  “Technically no,” the AI replied. “Practically speaking, yes. Elisia and Calijyt have a mutual defense accord but no formal military entanglement.”

  “Responsibility for one isn’t responsibility for the other,” Saryn said. “Partly because Calijyt’s independent and Elisia is not.”

  “Launch,” the AI announced. Then it surp
rised him by continuing, “Military responsibility for Elisia falls to Eltare before it would be taken up by the other Border systems.”

  “I don’t find Eltare particularly responsive in situations such as this,” Saryn said.

  “There are spatial and temporal limitations to the relationship,” the AI said.

  “RAV 4,” Saryn said, raising his eyebrows. “Do you have opinions on the political relationships of Border systems, either with each other or with the Alliance?”

  “Saryn,” the AI replied, and he was almost certain the mimicry was personally deliberate rather than professionally programmed. “I have opinions on everything I have information about.”

  Saryn smiled. “I’m very interested to hear that,” he said. “I hope you’ll be willing to share them, as time and activities allow.”

  “All you have to do is ask,” the AI told him.

  “I’m going to be disappointed if it turns out you actually fly better without me distracting you,” Lyris said.

  Saryn opened his mouth to reply before common sense and recent experience caught up with him. “RAV 3,” he said carefully. “Did you say that out loud?”

  “RAV 4, probably not,” Lyris’ voice replied, and hearing it made the difference clear once again. He wondered what Lyris might be hearing from him that he didn’t comment on.

  “RAV 3,” Saryn said. “If it makes you feel better, the AI was distracting me. Your hypothesis has not been disproven.”

  “Saryn, stop trying to be nice to me,” Lyris said. Saryn could hear the reluctant smile in his voice, and Lyris didn’t have to add, “Because it’s working,” for him to recognize it.

  He was starting to understand that, contrary to his expectation, how much Lyris liked him wasn’t the source of their conflict. He didn’t say it, because he knew when not to make things worse. Piloting an assault vehicle on its way into combat was one of those times.

  We’re not all as precise with language as you are, he heard Lyris say anyway, and he sighed. Preventing the conversation from escalating was not entirely within his control, then. He couldn’t keep himself from thinking.

  “Allcall override,” Kris’ voice said. “RAVs 4 and 5, maintain defensive orbits in the inner system. Stay alert and wait for further instructions. RAV 3, you’re with me.”