Laura Jo Phillips (39 page)

“I don’t know how much influence I’ll have over such decisions,” Hope said, “but I promise that if you wish to be a part of their lives, I won’t stand in your way.”

“Thank you,” Karma said. 

Hope turned at the sound of approaching footsteps and smiled to see Grace. 

“How you doing, Karma?” she asked as she knelt down beside them.

“I’m good,” Karma replied weakly.  “Thanks for bringing help.”

“You’re welcome,” Grace said.  She turned to Hope.  “The pilot of the VTOL that just landed said that there are two more on their way from Phoenix II, but its going to be about half an hour before they can get here.  I think he should take you, Karma, the Bearens and the babies back to the base for medical treatment, and one of the VTOLs on the way can take me to the compound for Berta and Aisling.  That sound good to you?”

“I don’t know,” Hope replied.  “Wouldn’t that leave you here alone until the next VTOL gets here?”

“Yes, but that’s fine.  There isn’t anyone after us any more, right?”

“That’s the question,” Hope said with a frown.  “Did the Bearens say anything to you about whoever was driving the ground-car?”

“No, they didn’t,” Grace replied.  “I just assumed they were dead.”

Both women looked up to see the new VTOL pilot and Jackson approaching.  Jackson was carrying a stretcher board, and the pilot had a small case which he set down in the sand and opened.  He removed a syringe and broke the seal on it. 

“I’m going to give her a pain killer,” he said, moving up beside Hope.  “It will allow us to move her without too much discomfort.”

Hope and Grace got up and moved out of the way so that the pilot could kneel down beside Karma.

“Is that all right with you, Karma?” Hope asked.

Karma nodded.  “Absolutely,” she replied.

“I apologize, Miss,” the young man said.  “I thought you were unconscious.”

“No,” she replied.  “Just wishing I was.”

The man smiled and reached for her arm which he lifted gently from the blanket.  Seconds later he had administered the injection and released Karma’s arm. 

“That should take just a few moments to kick in,” he said. 

By the time he was finished speaking, Karma was already feeling the effects of the drug.  The mind numbing pain she had been struggling with since the moment she’d fallen down the side of the incline the day before was finally fading. 

“Thank you,” she said softly as her body relaxed. 

“You’re welcome,” the pilot said.  By the time he finished saying it, Karma was out.  Seeing Karma relax into a deep and painless sleep was a relief to Hope. 

“Jackson, what about the guys in the ground-car?” Hope asked.

“Two of them are dead, and one ran off,” Jackson replied as he helped the pilot slide Karma onto a stretcher board.  “Rob and Clark were going to track him, but they can’t do that and take care of the other two babies at the same time.”

“You can’t stay here on your own, Grace, not with one of those guys running loose,” Hope said.  “He could be anywhere right now.”

“What should we do then?” Grace asked.  “I know you need to get the babies and Karma to medical help, but we can’t just leave Berta and Aisling.  We promised we’d come back for them.”

“I don’t know,” Hope said, as they followed Jackson and the pilot back toward the VTOL.  After they slid Karma into the VTOL, the pilot climbed in to strap the stretcher down, and Jackson turned back to Hope and Grace.

“I think the best thing is for us to load up, go back for the other two women, then head to the base,” Jackson said.  “We need to bring Ellicia and the pilot of our VTOL with us though.  I don’t want to leave them here.”

“Of course,” Hope said.  Clark stepped out of the VTOL where he and Rob were sitting out of the sun with Mattlan and Weldan.

“If you’ll hold Mattlan, I’ll go take care of our pilot,” he said to Grace.  Grace swallowed hard, but held out her arms.  She had never held a baby in her life, but she wasn’t going to admit that to this giant of a man who was handling the baby as though he’d been doing it from childhood.

Clark laid the baby in her arms, then bent down to kiss him gently on the head before turning away.  Grace glanced at Hope in surprise, only to be even more stunned at the expression of sad longing on the other woman’s face.

Chapter
43

Jackson asked Grace for one of the blankets still tied to her strange looking pack, and carried it over to where Ellicia lay.  He knelt down beside her, gazing into her face for a long moment before reaching over to close her eyes with gentle fingers. 

“The feet of your spirit now carry you to the next world, Ellicia Daniels,” he said softly.  “May your journey be quick, your destination filled with the peace and joy you have earned.” 

Jackson shook out the blanket and laid it over Ellicia, pulling it up to gently cover her face.  Once he had her covered, he remembered something, and reached beneath the blanket so he could slip his fingers into the pocket of Ellicia’s jeans.  He found the tiny gold and pearl earring she had used to track Hope and placed it carefully in his own pocket.  Then he tucked the blanket back in place.

“On behalf of all of the people of Jasan, I thank you, Ellicia Daniels, for the gift of your sons,” he said.  He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. “Goodbye, little Sister,” he finished in a whisper.

Hope stood with Grace near the VTOL, listening to Grace talk with only half of her attention.  She felt the sadness rolling off of Jackson, his grief so intense her own heart burned with it.  Clark and Rob felt just as deeply sad as Jackson did, but at the moment they were each occupied with other things, so the emotions coming from them were not as intense as they had been earlier.

She didn’t really understand why she sensed their emotions so clearly, but she wished she didn’t.  It was difficult enough to hold her own grief in check without feeling theirs on top of it.  Hope felt anger begin to well up inside of her, but she pushed it away.  She would not allow herself to travel that path.  Anger had nothing to offer her, would not help her, would not change things.  If she allowed anger to rule her, she would hurt only herself.   

Jackson rose to his feet and headed for the ground-car which still sat with its front end inside the cabin door of the VTOL.  He opened the rear door and leaned in, ignoring the remains of the human looking male in the back seat.  Careful not to touch anything, he checked out the interior of the vehicle. 

It only took a moment to identify the components that, by a process of illumination, had to be Blind Sight.  If they had a working Blind Sight system, then they were only a step away from figuring out how to nullify it.  He hoped.  The problem was, he didn’t know if the ground-car’s sudden appearance just before it crashed into the VTOL meant that the Blind Sight system had been turned off, or if it had failed to work.

Jackson backed out of the ground car, then climbed over it to get into the VTOL’s cabin.  He found Ellicia’s purse still stashed beneath the seat she had been using.  He retrieved the purse, climbed back out of the VTOL and took it over to where Hope still stood with Grace.

“Hope, would you please look for Ellicia’s vox?” he asked, holding the bag toward her.

Hope looked at him in surprise, then she looked at the purse, then the small bundle she was holding, then back up at him again. 

“Um, my hands are a little full,” she said.

“I’ll take the baby,” Jackson said.

“All right,” Hope said, mystified, but agreeable.  She traded the baby for the purse, and opened it up.

“Obviously the brave warrior fears delving into the secret depths of a woman’s handbag,” Grace said with more than a little humor in her voice.

Hope glanced at Jackson doubtfully, but the expression on his face told her that Grace was correct.  She bent her head low over the purse to hide the smile she could not prevent. 

“Here,” she said, as she pulled Ellicia’s vox from the purse and handed it to him.

“Thank you,” he said, holding the baby out to her.  She set the purse on the ground and took Harlan back.  Jackson slapped the vox to his ear and stepped away from them, but she heard him ask for the Director before he was too far away to be overheard.

Hope knew that the Director was the head of whatever branch of the Directorate Harlan and Ellicia had worked for, but no more than that.  She had never wanted to know any more than that before.  But she did now.  The Director was the only person who was going to be able to tell her what had happened to Harlan.  And she wanted the whole story, not some edited, prettied-up version of events.

Thinking of Harlan brought a lump to her throat, but she refused to allow herself to start crying now.  There was simply too much to be done, and there were too many people around.  She would do her grieving in private.

Jackson knew that telling the Director about Ellicia was not going to be easy, but it had to be done, and he was the one who had to do it.  The Director was silent for a long time after he broke the news, and Jackson followed his lead, allowing the Director time to absorb the blow.  When the Director cleared his throat and began asking questions, Jackson filled him in quickly. 

“This ground-car is important, Director,” he said.  “It’s got Blind Sight in it. It’s Xanti technology, so there’s no telling what kind of self-destructs are built into it, and it needs to be handled carefully.  Jasan recovered one that self-destructed before we could learn anything useful from it.  We can’t allow anyone to touch it.”

“If they have the Blind Sight on a ground-car, no telling what else they might have it on,” the Director said.

“Exactly,” Jackson said, relieved that the Director was able to set aside his grief for the moment.  “We know that the Xanti have had ships in Jasani Space, but we have never been able to detect them.  We believe Blind Sight is what enables them to hide so completely from us.”

“All right, Jackson,” the Director said.  “Fill me in on the rest now.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jackson said, admiring the man.  He had no doubts at all as to how much the Director loved Ellicia.  She was as a daughter to him.  As much as the loss of Ellicia grieved Jackson, he could only guess at the Director’s pain.

Once the pilot was finished securing Karma, he stepped out of the VTOL and approached Grace and Hope. 

“If you ladies will get aboard, we can head on back to the base,” he said.

“We need to go to the compound where we were held first,” Grace said.  “There are still two women there that we need to rescue.”

“Where would that be?” the pilot asked.

Hope explained as clearly as she could, but before she was done the pilot was already shaking his head.

 “I’m sorry Ma’am,” he said, “but you must be mistaken.  Outside of town, there aren’t any houses, occupied or not, within three hundred miles of the training base.”

Hope and Grace both looked at the man with raised brows.  “Is that right?” Hope asked.

“Yes, Ma’am, sorry,” he said.

“Well then, perhaps you can explain to me how it is that we walked three hundred miles in one and a half days,” Hope said sweetly.

“I don’t think that’s possible, Ma’am,” the pilot replied, noticing that Jackson Bearen was glaring at him for some reason. 

“Well you can’t have it both ways,” Hope said.  “Either we walked three hundred miles in a day and a half, or you’re wrong and there really is a compound out here.”

The pilot opened his mouth to respond, but a soft growl from Jackson convinced him to shut it.  He didn’t know Jackson, or his brothers, but he did know that they were dangerous men.  Not only that, but he was under strict orders to do whatever the Bearens told him to do.

“There’s a camouflage system called Blind Sight that we have only recently become aware of,” Jackson said, focusing his attention on Hope.  “It is an extremely advanced system developed by the Xanti. 

“That ground-car is equipped with Blind Sight, which is why we couldn’t see, or hear, the ground-car from the air, even though Grace told us exactly where it should be.  It’s entirely probable that the compound is also so equipped.”

“Damn,” the pilot said.  “It’s good enough that you couldn’t see a moving ground-car that you knew was there?”

“Yes,” Jackson replied shortly before turning back to Hope.  “If you are the only one that can find this compound with any certainty, I’m afraid it’s going to be necessary for you to go along.  Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much chance that anyone else is going to find it.”

“Get Ellicia aboard, and let’s go then,” Hope said.

“We have to wait for the incoming VTOLs to arrive,” Jackson said.  “We can’t leave this ground-car unguarded.  It’s too important.”

“Their ETA is only three minutes,” Clark said as he stepped out of the VTOL after securing their pilot.

“Good,” Jackson replied.  “If you ladies will get settled, by the time we are ready to go the others should be here.” 

Chapter
44

Hope stood between the pilot and Jackson in the cockpit of the VTOL, guiding them across the desert by memory and instinct.  The pilot was a little frustrated by Hope’s insistence that he fly low and slow so that she had a good view of the landscape, but Hope ignored his impatience.