Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (22 page)

The instant they had a head
count, he took them back to Earth, and then Austra, so that the Scientists
could grab their gear and leave. Dareg had that down in ten minutes, and dumped
most of the mass they were carrying. He collected the crew onto the bridge,
along with Tenet and Karina, then made the craft
just
large enough for
them. They each got a chair

"I'll get you all back to
Harmony now. Can you move a bit faster than these people did?"

Lenn, the small, powerful looking
crewman who'd ended up being in charge of things the whole time, nodded at him.

"Do you need us for this? We
can stay with the ship, if that works."

Dare narrowed his eyes at the
strange looking man. He had silver hair and eyes, and spoke with a strange
accent, but was also a hard worker and likable. Then, he'd liked Bill, too. The
big difference there was that Bill had seemed to fit in better than Lenn did.
This wasn't the kind of person that you sent in to act as a spy directly. He'd
be caught almost immediately. Unless you were incredibly clever... Or
desperate.

So in all the odds of him being
with the Adversaries was small enough that it was as safe to trust him as
anyone else.

"Not that I know of, but I
can call on you for future work? We can set this up as a real job, if sporadic.
I need help with the Jupiter thing for certain. Maybe other things, as well.
Can we all keep in touch? Lenn, will you be in charge of that for me?"

The man nodded, and then smiled a
bit.

"I will. Thank you."

Dareg shrugged.

"As long as you aren't with
the Adversaries. You do seem pretty different, but open enough about it."

Karina, who was in the
passenger's seat, got ready to fight, but if this man were against them that
way, Dare had probably just doomed them all.

Instead of fighting, there was a
low grunt.

"I'd figured I was passing
pretty well, too. Oh, well. Forten. One of the forward arm. I've been put in to
guard you and Queen Tiera, if I can. Not that it will help anything. Still, if
there's a girl taken, I can help fight. We aren't horrible that way, my
people."

The princess stopped, not getting
out whatever weapon she had, though she was tense. Dareg just guided them
upward, back toward Harmony. As soon as they were in space, without an
atmosphere around them of note, he jumped, then moved toward the city faster
than was normal. Luckily there were no other ships, or worse, people around to
get in the way.

He nodded however.

"I don't think that's the
case. If I have this right... Queen Constance was trying to get Karina and I
back in time for dinner at the palace. Without something like this we would
have had twenty pushy Austrans to deal with, and probably an extra several days
of doing whatever it is they'd been up to. Researching the Ring makers, most
likely. That was the most interesting part of this. I mean, real aliens? They
aren't even trying to kill us all or
anything
."

That got a chuckle from the
muscular short man, who stood up.

"We can all just go through
a personnel hatch, so you don't have to dock. Come on everyone!"

One of them, a Tellerand woman
who was pale and had a cross around her neck, stood rapidly, but looked at Lenn
briefly, then down at the floor.

"Excuse me... What is a
Forten?"

Lenn froze, so Dareg spoke for
him.

"People that had left Earth
about three thousand years ago. They, and some of their friends are coming back
now, and will be here in a few years. Lenn came first, to make sure we're
friendly. Which we are, amazingly. It's part of why we need to get Mars ready,
so that people have places to stay when they come. Not all of them probably
will want to, but some might, so it's worth setting up. We need to make them
comfortable, after all." He was ready to say he was joking, if the woman
freaked out, but she just smiled gently.

"An amazing thing then! Yes.
I will help you? We all will. Guests must be cared for before we think of our
own well being. It is in
His
book."

Before he could ask who
he
was, Lenn got everyone toward a wall, made an airlock and got them out with all
their gear. It
was
a lot faster than landing, so Dare decided to do that
again in the future. In his imagination that meant tossing recalcitrant, and
strangely tall, people out by force, but it would work pretty well, even if
they went out on their own. It took a lot less effort to fix the wall again,
once everyone was out and away than almost anything else would have.

He glanced at Karina, who was the
only one left, Tenet having gone with the crew, and wrinkled his nose.

"Now to see if my guess is
right. If
not
then we need to get to saving someone. I hope it's just a
talented way of asking us to dinner and getting us free of clingy
Austrans."

She nodded, seeming more than a
little bit tense on the topic. She was in all black that day, to his soft
copper, both in what seemed a bit like military outfits without really being
them. They weren't dressing clothes, but they had helped to set the idea of
them being in charge on the ship.

She didn't speak, not wanting to
distract him. That meant he was, two minutes later, settling over the palace in
Noram. Slowly, since it was important there. He'd heard a rumor that if you
went too fast the Royal Guard would slam up a shield and shoot at you with
Austran weapons that could, in theory, kill anyone in a ship that was hit. Not
destroy the
vessel
, but those inside could be in real trouble if they
underwent enough strikes.

So, emergency or not, he went
slow. As soon as they were down, he started to climb out, Karina placing a hand
on his arm.

"Go slowly. We don't know
what we're going into here. There are guards, but that's normal. Don't spook
them, and be ready to move if it's needed."

He gave her a nod.

"Right. On three then, we
get out at quarter speed?" That came from his training, where sometimes
one person would move slower than the other, to make the fight more fair. It
was nearly impossible to really do, but his princess got the idea, clearly
having had similar training.

She did the count for them.

"One, two... Now." She
said it calmly, and moved with grace that would be hard to match.

They left the ship up, hogging
the good landing space, just in case they had to run or evacuate the building.
That wasn't going to happen, but Karina had been right. They'd been invited to
attend the King and Queen due to an emergency. If it wasn't a stealth way of
getting free from his last duty, it could be a real issue. Working on that
idea, if carefully so as to not make problems, made a certain amount of sense.

On the ground the two,
only
two, guards smiled at them, and bowed. He didn't recognize them, but they
weren't kids, and it was clear Karina got who they were.

"Varen! Lydia! We heard
there was a problem. Any news on it?"

That got two head shakes. The
larger one, the man, Varen, was about six-five or so, but vastly muscled. His
voice was soft when he spoke to the princess. Like he was talking to a child.

"Nothing that I've heard of.
It could be that high level? Just secret enough that even the Guard doesn't
know? That happens." The way he said it indicated that he didn't think it
did
all that often.

They walked into the building
with a purpose anyway, not running to find the King or Queen, but moving as
fast as long legs could go. That meant five minutes later they were taken to a
side room. A small space that had a feeling much like the rooms some shop
keepers had behind the store. A private place, that was actually real. It was
nice, and held several women, each of them holding something on their lap that
they were working on. Sewing projects, mainly.

It was the Queen, Countess
Thomson, and Sara Debri. She was doing beading work however, covering the
outside of a tiny bag with yellow and blue pieces of painted or dyed wood. They
were all dressed up, but not like they were going either to war or a ball.

The Queen went wide eyed and
tried to stand up.

"Karina! Dareg! I didn't
know that you'd be here this soon. You were at Saturn..." She looked a bit
worried, and slightly wild about it.

Tamerlane covered a silent laugh,
her tiny hand pale and delicate seeming.

"Oh, my. Well, I guess we
need to be careful when we tell some people that there's an emergency."
She looked at Dareg and wrinkled her nose cutely. "It was my idea. No one
has been taken, I just thought that it might be easier to get away if you had a
reason to. Forgive me?"

She didn't seem worried, but was
watching him carefully, like she did.

"I figured that might be the
case. Still, we hurried along anyway. After we took everyone back to their
places,
or
we would have been here within ten minutes or so. We do have
news however. One of the people from Harmony that was working in my crew turned
out to be one of the Forten. I need to get with Lyone and check his story
out." That caught attention, the ladies seeming not to know what the
meant.

Except Sara, who started to pack
her things away, speaking while she did.

"
That's
pretty big
then. Here I figured that going to a new planet would be the biggest news of
the week. We've been watching you both almost the whole time. They put in a
screen here for it. It's like being there with you, except the part where you
kept ignoring us as we called out. That was rude. You'll have to work on
that." She grinned, directing that at Dareg, but as soon as she got up she
hugged, then kissed, Karina.

Reminding him that these two had
basically been together for years. As in a real relationship. It left him
feeling a little jealous, but he managed to let most of that go after a second.
It was just how things were.

It wasn't like no one had
mentioned it to him before. Interestingly, he got a hug too, from the blonde
Ancient, and while it wasn't as warm, perhaps, it was clearly meant to show
everyone that he, Dareg, was being
added
to their group, rather than
shunned or snubbed as an interloper. At least that was how he took it. So he
hugged her back, trying to return that part of the feeling, and not imply
anything more than that. It was hard, since the woman was pretty enough to be
distracting.

Sara shrugged, which reminded
Dareg of what he'd seen Tor doing, the few times they'd met.

"I need to get to that.
Dare, can you go with me? We
should
take Karina too, but there are
limits that way. We'll be back for dinner? Unless Dareg isn't invited?"
She didn't seem embarrassed to say it that way.

He still snorted at her, smiling.

"Oh, that's nice of you.
What if they didn't want me to come? Now Queen Constance will feel all awkward
about it." He smiled at the woman warmly. She hadn't stood, but there had
been no bowing either, which he had to figure was a sign that he'd been accepted
as family. "Not that you
should
of course. Totally fair to keep me
out of the good parties and secret meetings. In fact, I probably
shouldn't
be invited that often. Karina needs enough space to keep her sane, after all,
and we just spent a week together. So far she hasn't stabbed me, but that could
just be down to me having had a shield on the whole time." He smiled,
making sure it was clear he was joking with them all. At the same time it would
give Constance a way out, if she needed.

In fact, she did look at Karina,
her head shaking just a bit. It was nearly subliminal, it was such a tiny
movement.

"Do you need some space
dear? That does sound fair."

Princess Karina actually rolled
her eyes.

"No, mother. If you don't
want him at the meal, just
say
so. Really, I find him remarkably easy to
take. At least over short periods of time like we just did. The only one I
wanted to stab at all was Grant Bugler, from Channel Seventeen Lima. Talk about
a smarmy
git
." She made a low, angry, growling sound under her breath.
"Next time I suggest we accidently leave him when we come back."

Their experiences had been
different that way, Dare guessed. Not because the man had been sweetness and
light the whole time. He hadn't really, being needy and demanding about almost
everything. It was that, for some reason, he'd avoided Dareg for the most part.
Possibly understanding that Dare
could
actually strand him out there if
he'd felt the need and it would have been legal. There were no laws, after all,
except what the captain said. Not that far away.

It was strange but everyone in
the room seemed to agree with that, including Tamerlane.

Her voice was soft, and shy
around the edges, but easy enough for him to hear.

"That man was insufferable
the entire time. I thought that poor Jan was going to strike him down, more
than once. He kept belittling her. Subtly implying that she only had the job at
all due to her being her station manager's daughter. Which is the case, I
gather? Still, she did good work, the entire time. I think we should organize a
campaign to snub that man."