Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare (13 page)
Read Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare Online
Authors: Susan Kearney
“I did,” Ranth said.
The answer set Zical back on his heels. While he was well aware of Dora’s capabilities when she’d been a computer, as a human she was subject to distractions, possible lack of judgment, errors that could be due to exhaustion or hormones or upsets. Although Zical knew Ranth’s systems were in triplicate, what bothered him was that Dora was messing with things without any backup or oversight. They needed to talk.
Zical headed for her quarters to find them empty. “Ranth, locate Dora, please.” It was a measure of his vexation that he hadn’t asked about her whereabouts first, but then Dora might have been forewarned of his arrival, and he’d wanted to confront her before she’d assembled an argument. He couldn’t have his crew altering critical equipment without permission—not even Cyn, his chief engineer, had that kind of authority.
“Dora’s in the gym with Tessa.”
“What are they doing?”
“Tessa’s teaching Dora to fight.”
Zical let out a groan. Tessa had studied the fighting arts before she’d possessed a Federation suit that allowed her to move at the speed of thought. After she’d developed her psi, she’d become deadly. Skilled, smart, and daring, she would make a fine teacher. He approved wholeheartedly of women learning to defend themselves. While Kahn had initially had difficulty with the concept that a woman could master warrior skills, Zical had seen the advantage immediately. If Summar had had such skills, she and their unborn child might still be alive today.
However, with fighting skills, a warrior needed the wisdom of when to use them. He couldn’t help wondering if Dora yet had such prudence.
Zical had seen Tessa in action many times, and as he entered the training center—four padded walls, a padded ceiling, and a padded floor, necessary to protect the body when fighting in the three dimensions that null-grav allowed—his gaze lasered in on Dora.
Both women wore skintight black suits that revealed every curve. Dora was taller and curvier, but slower and clumsier, than Tessa. Yet, she was much further along in the learning process than he’d have expected.
“We’re almost done here,” Tessa greeted him.
Dora didn’t even look his way. Tessa was pressing her with a forward lunge ending in a back kick. Dora evaded, but not quite fast enough, and Tessa’s foot glanced off her shoulder, sending her spinning into a wall. But Dora didn’t fight her momentum; she used it, somersaulted, and attacked from below with a bold move Zical had never seen.
“Nice.” Tessa blocked and countered as both women floated to the floor. “You’ll practice during the voyage?”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
Dora’s face spasmed. Odd, she’d been in total control when fighting. He’d noted no twitching or unnatural movement during the bout, but now that Dora was simply walking, she once again lacked control.
Tessa nodded. “I’ll hold you to that promise. Your instincts are good. Once you learn to trust them, you’ll move to the next level. If you’ll excuse me, I promised Kahn I’d meet him for lunch.”
Tessa departed, leaving Zical alone with Dora. The suit’s evaporation took care of her sweat, but her face remained flushed from her exertions, her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked alive and lovely, and he wished he’d come here for another kiss. For a woman with no sexual experience, Dora had mastered a surefire way to hone his interest. Between her intellect, her sassy demeanor, and that skintight catsuit, his senses were on high alert.
Her wonderful scent wafted to him, and he folded his arms across his chest, bracing himself for the coming confrontation. “Ranth told me you’ve modified his systems.”
“A few tweaks here and there.”
From her tone, he could tell that she had no indication she’d done anything wrong. That was the big problem. If she couldn’t comprehend that being human had altered her so that making errors might now be a potential problem, then she couldn’t change her behavior. More gently and patiently than he’d thought possible, he explained. “Ranth’s systems are complex. We depend upon him for survival.”
“That’s why he needs to be at his best. My tweaks increased his efficiency.” Chin raised, head high, she acted as though she expected praise for her actions.
“Suppose you’ve decreased his efficiency?”
“Then we would have deleted the program change.”
Stars! “You are arguing with logic. I’m talking about the possibility of you making human errors.”
Dora blinked and then opened her eyes wide. “Huh? You don’t want me to use logic?”
“You are no longer a computer, and can make mistakes like the rest of us. Someone should oversee and check your work.”
“No one is more qualified than me to alter Ranth’s programs.”
He couldn’t argue her facts. “You’re missing my point. Who gave you permission to change his systems?”
Dora frowned. “Why do I need permission? I already told you that no one is better qualified than me. Why would I ask permission from someone with a lesser knowledge?”
Again, she made a good point, but he had his own to make as well. “On a starship, no one is better at repairing the engines than the chief engineer. Yet no engineer would modify the engines without the captain’s permission.”
“We don’t have that chain of command on Mystique.”
“True. But on the starship orders must be obeyed. Once we’re in space, if you want to make changes in the computer, you’ll need to ask my permission.”
“Compliance. I mean yes, I understand.”
“Good.” Zical wondered if she really did understand. Her acceptance had been almost too easy. He’d sought her out expecting a long argument, pleas, logic, or sexual innuendos, not this easy agreement that felt as though she’d cut him off at the knees.
“I know you aren’t pleased that Tessa agreed I should go on the mission,” Dora sucked on her bottom lip for a moment, then spoke in a voice that rang with sincerity, “but I want to contribute. Since I’m part of humanity, I want to help us all survive.”
He’d neither expected her to be upfront about what he considered her underhanded tactics of going to Tessa instead of him to be assigned to the mission, nor had he ever considered she’d feel a sense of responsibility to humanity. Since he’d already explained that there could be nothing personal between them, and was well aware that she feared the unknown, he was beginning to see her joining the mission as an act of courage.
However, he wouldn’t put it past Dora to put aside her innate sensuality to impress him in other ways. But if that was her intent, Stars, her tactic was working. What worried him was that he might find her even more attractive as an efficient working member of his crew than he did as the sexy vamp. However, he appreciated this new side of her, and he was impressed that she was learning to fight.
“I’m glad you’re coming with us,” he admitted, then felt compelled to question her, “but are you sure you’re ready to go?”
“ENGINEERING?” Zical asked from his station on the bridge as Dora watched him prepare to take the starship
Verazen
into Osarian space. Finally, the ship was ready for the mission. Dora hoped she was ready, too.
The Osarian planet occupied a unique position in the galaxy, its orbit located equidistant between two black stars, creating a slingshot effect into hyperspace that could save on fuel and increase their speed, enough to take centuries off their journey. The
Verazen
was a brand-new ship, and therefore untested over the distance and speeds they intended to fly.
Using the ship’s drive alone, the journey would take half their suit-extended lifetimes. So they would navigate the deep Osarian gravity well, plunging closer than anyone had ever done to the black holes before swinging into hyperspace. One miscalculation and the immense gravity could haul in the ship and squash the hull like a mud flea, or fling them in the wrong direction and add additional light-years to their journey. Piloting and navigation had to be exact, the engines tuned to perfection.
Despite the tension on the bridge, Dora was determined to remain as professional as the rest of the crew. She’d been in hyperspace more times than she could count, but never with a body. Since hyperspace was known to increase sensation of all five senses, she braced for the additional stimuli. Some races sickened and had to be drugged into a sleep state, but humans adapted, even if they suffered a bit of nausea at first. Tessa had advised Dora to lower her suit temperature and keep her eyes peeled on the viewscreen, but she focused on Zical, enjoying the opportunity to observe him.
The Rystani captain leaned eagerly forward, his posture erect, his head high, his eyes bright with anticipation. On land Zical was a formidable man, but the helm of a starship was his natural element and where he came alive. Dora had accompanied him on every mission and enjoyed the sparkle of anticipation in his eyes that went so well with how he led his officers in a calm manner. She also enjoyed his gaze sweeping over her, as if to make certain she was okay, as if he wasn’t able to treat her like just another crew member. On the rare occasions when their glances met, she appreciated the approval he reflected back at her for a job she did well.
“Engineering is a go.” Cyn, the chief engineer, a skilled woman from Scartar, patted her console and spoke under her breath to her engines as if they required soothing encouragement. An exotic warrior-woman with arms as muscular as a Rystani hunter, she came from a matriarchal society where women ruled. During her computer days, Dora had been a vital part of this crew during missions to evacuate refugees from Rystan, and she knew that Cyn had no difficulties taking orders from a man. With her fierce looks, muscular body, and easygoing personality, the green-skinned Cyn had a reputation for real genius when it came to making repairs, and her underlings adored her.
“Navigation?” Zical’s face appeared calm, but Dora noted the growing glitter of excitement in his gaze. The man loved adventure but didn’t like to admit enjoying the risk-taking side of his personality. Instead, he usually projected an air of responsible leadership, but in a moment like this one, his true character showed. He was impatient to see what was out there, to go somewhere no Rystani had ever gone, and his excitement stirred a matching one inside her.
She was risking her life for a shot at love, and exhilaration mixed with the dangerous tension in her belly. Dora held her breath, the moments passing by too fast, and yet contradictorily much too slowly. Hyperspace was unstable. No one from the Federation had gone out as far as they planned and returned to tell about their journey—at least not in the last few hundred thousand years. However, her physical safety was of a lesser concern to her than the emotional risk she’d taken by insisting on accompanying Zical.
Instinctively, she’d known they’d needed time together. She hoped the friendship they shared would grow as the journey progressed. While she was eager to experience passion with Zical, she also wanted her feelings to deepen. She wanted to earn his respect and his admiration as well as his lust, and she wouldn’t stand a chance of accomplishing her goal if she’d remained behind on Mystique.
“We’re keyed in the groove.” Ranth’s voice, steady and crisp, helped Dora steady her jumpy nerves.
Zical went down his checklist, his commanding demeanor reassuring. “Weapons?”
“Locked down tight.” The Rystani warrior Vax had been Zical’s second-in-command for the past three years during the transfer of Rystani colonists to Mystique. Serious, loyal, Vax followed orders without question. Short for a Rystani, he nevertheless possessed a broad chest, wide shoulders, and was a fierce competitor at
Famat
, a complex gambling game that taxed mind and spirit, and he could down large quantities of alcohol without it seeming to effect his judgment.
“Communications?”
Shannon Walker, a quiet Terran woman, handled her station with an ease that belied her age. She’d become a widow due to an accident in space. She admitted to the spry age of sixty, but Dora knew her to be closer to eighty—a mere youngster considering the suits increased Terran lifespans to close to a thousand years—unless they died in an accident.
Nothing was more dangerous than hyperspace.
Dora tensed, knowing this part of the journey and the exit in the uncharted territory were probably the most dangerous times of the mission, since that’s when they were most vulnerable. Hyperspace inside the Federation was usually stable, unless a local star went supernova, unless a black hole destabilized the region, unless a worm hole blasted hyperspace to shreds and their ship along with it.
Telling herself that she would be dead before she knew what happened and that she’d suffer no pain didn’t help. Dora had too many things she wanted to do before she died. Sheesh. She hadn’t even made love—an item on the top of her to-do list. But human sexuality was complicated, especially when mixed with stubborn Rystani males.
“Computer?” Zical interrupted Dora’s thoughts. As he asked for her report, he didn’t look at her, carefully treating her exactly the same as his other crew.
“All systems are operational.” Pleased that she sounded calm, Dora suspected her effort was destroyed by an eye tick. Sometimes rubbing the muscles around the eye helped, but she didn’t like to be obvious about her disability and turned her head away from the others … and caught sight of … something that didn’t belong on the bridge.
“Five seconds to hyperspace.” Cyn counted down the jump sequence.
The bridge, shaped like a pancake, was positioned on top of the living quarters with the engines in the lower decks. The inside was compact with large viewscreens around the circumference, each station consisting of equipment monitors, consoles, and vidscreens to show other sections of the ship as well as the exterior view. Right now the stars appeared stationary, but once in hyperspace they’d streak past the windows. For the shift from normal space, the crew didn’t depend on their suits alone to keep them safe but webbed in with safety straps, although once in hyperspace they could move about freely.
“Three seconds.”
“Two.”
However, behind the webbing that extended from the ceiling to the floor, was something, someone too small to be a crew member. With the creature’s suit matched in color to the webbing to camouflage its presence, Dora would never have spied the intruder if she hadn’t angled her head down to rub her eye. Perhaps she was seeing things. Surely Ranth’s upgraded sensors would have noted an alien presence, so Dora hesitated to say anything, unwilling to trust her human eyes.
Could the fear in her gut be causing hallucinations?
“One second.”
The creature moved.
Dora braced for the hyper jump, but still warned the others. “Intruder on board.”
“Security alert.” Vax issued the warning through the ship’s com.
“Where?” Zical asked, turning his head to her with a frown.
The ship jumped out of normal space, and their hyperdrive kicked in along with the slingshot effect from the gravity well’s release. To Dora the impact of hyperspace was like a kick in the gut. Her hearing picked up every hull vibration. Colors sharpened. The air in her lungs seemed crisper. The hair on her arms stood on end. Due to the intensity of her untried senses, the silhouette of the intruder appeared to blur, causing her to wonder if she’d seen anything at all.
Perhaps, her seeing movement was simply a side effect of hyperspace. They were traveling faster, farther than anyone in the Federation had ever before. The speed was more than her human brain could comprehend, and although it seemed impossible, they’d already passed four percent of the way through the galaxy.
Ranth disagreed with Dora’s alert. “My sensors haven’t picked up an intruder.”
Nothing Ranth could have said could have upset her more. Since her transformation, Dora had had trouble adjusting to her human eyes, which only looked forward and somewhat to the sides. Ranth could see everywhere. He could note an alien presence in dozens of ways. He could hear breathing, sense their body heat. Pick up any number of clues on his scanners and internal sensors.
“Dora,” Zical eyed her, his expression worried. “Where’s the intruder? Talk to us.”
Obviously, Zical and the rest of the crew didn’t see it hiding. But she could still see a blurred silhouette in the webbing. So either her eyes were faulty, or she was going insane. Or the hyperspace speed was playing tricks with her sight. But then something moved again. She was about to raise her hand and point, when the creature emerged from hiding.
Not a creature.
A boy.
Kirek.
Oh, no
. The rascal had sneaked aboard. His parents were going to be furious. Zical would no doubt give the boy a good tongue-lashing for his antics.
Relieved she wasn’t crazy or that her eyes had not somehow malfunctioned, Dora rubbed her forehead, which was beginning to pound from the intense hyperspace vibrations. At least the ship hadn’t disintegrated from the enormous forces. Her attention focused on Kirek, who looked both sheepish and not-so-innocent, but ready to own up to his actions.
How had a four-year-old boy avoided the most sophisticated ship’s sensors known to the Federation?
Security double-timed onto the bridge, weapons drawn. When they spied Kirek, they lowered their weapons before Zical gave the order to stand down.
“We are on the mark, Captain,” Vax reported from his station.
“Hull temperature rose four degrees. Nothing we can’t handle.” Cyn retracted the webbing, leaving Zical to deal with his stowaway.
“Inform Miri and Etru that their son is with us,” Zical ordered his communications officer.
Shannon nodded. “Aye, sir, but their response will take some time due to our considerable progress.”
Zical approached the boy and kneeled to look him in the eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“And how did he avoid Ranth’s sensors?” Dora asked.
“You need me.” Kirek answered Zical with the tone of a toddler, but the demeanor of an adult.
“Your parents need you,” Zical told him.
“Ranth, are your sensors picking up Kirek now?” Dora asked.
“Yes. But it’s as if he’s decided to allow me to scan him. I have no explanation.”
Zical arched a brow and waited for the child to say more. Dora wasn’t so sure
he
could explain, but she admired Zical’s patience.
However, Kirek was not just unusual for a child, he was unique. As the only human being known to have been born in hyperspace, he’d exhibited signs of maturation and genius early. His psi was extraordinarily strong for an adult, never mind a child, and his intelligence was off all measurable charts.
“I can cloak myself from machines,” Kirek said.
So he
did
have an explanation.
“How?” Zical asked.
“I’ll show you.” Kirek stood there in front of them. Nothing changed.
“He isn’t gone, is he?” Ranth asked.
“He’s right here.” Zical tousled the boy’s hair.
“He’s disappeared from my sensors. I can’t get a reading,” Ranth sounded more intrigued than disturbed.
“Kirek?” Zical’s tone was curious, but not the least bit anxious.
“He’s back on my sensors now,” Ranth reported.
“We’ll have to turn around to take him home.” Zical plucked the boy into his arms.
Dora understood that Zical was disappointed by the huge delay in their journey, but his arms around Kirek remained gentle, his tone kind, his demeanor compassionate. After they’d made good use of the Osarian black holes, their speed was incredible. Although they’d just left, to brake their ship, then turn around and retrace their flight path without the slingshot effect would take years.
Kirek squirmed. “My presence is necessary to this mission. Without me, you will fail.”
Such a serious, grown-up prediction, like that of a prophet, coming from the mouth of a little boy seemed incongruous, but Zical hesitated. “How do you know we need you?”
“I just do.” Kirek wriggled down and looked up at him beseechingly, his big blue eyes both wise and sad.
Dora wanted to tell the boy everything would be fine. This wasn’t his quest. He should have time to be a kid before he placed himself in jeopardy on a dangerous mission. Yet, clearly Kirek had never been a normal kid. Even before his birth, the family had all been aware of his strong psi presence. Since then, he seemed to have an inner quality that radiated from him—like a wise, old soul.