Shielder — A new Science Fiction Romance (Book 1, Shielder Series) (25 page)

Guilt at having him detained inundated her.
But delaying him would help guarantee her successful escape.
Besides, he could easily prove his true identity with hand and
voice prints. The arrest would only slow him down.

She turned her attention to starting the
engines and preparing for take off. The controls responded smoothly
to her touch. Once again using Chase's code, she contacted base
command and received permission to depart. She called the children
back into the cockpit.

"Something has come up, and we have to leave
Odera immediately," she told them. "You need to get back into the
safety harnesses."

Raven's eyes widened. "But what about
Chase?"

"He's been detained on business. He'll catch
up with us later."

After strapping the children in, Nessa sank
into Chase's seat. His scent lingered there. Remorse, and the old,
familiar, aching loneliness swept through her. Granted, she had
Raven and Brand, but she entertained no delusions about a mate in
her future. No man would ever find her desirable. Her nights with
Chase would have to provide memories for a lifetime.

Her heart beating wildly, she activated the
hoverlifts and the ship rose from the pad, listing a little. Rough
vibrations shook the cockpit, demanding her complete concentration.
But her seasons of flying reconnaissance missions with Jarek paid
off. Righting the ship, she guided it into position to break away
from Odera's gravitational field. The children watched
silently.

No turning back now.

Minutes later, they sped toward freedom. The
navigation plotter provided the coordinates for Santerra, which
Nessa fed into the flight controller. She set the controls on
autopilot, then released her harness and unhooked the children.

Raven immediately returned to her computer
screen, while Brand went to stand by Chase's seat. He remained
there, staring at the seat, as if he expected Chase to return at
any time. Nessa's initial adrenaline rush gave way to a sudden
onslaught of fatigue. She rubbed her aching neck.

The computer's calculations indicated it
would take six days to reach Santerra by the most direct route.
Surely that would be soon enough. As best as she could tell, she
still had eight days before full incubation.

"Come on," she told the children. "Let's go
replicate the midday meal. Then we'll play with Turi and Lia."

"Can't we wait for Chase?" Raven asked. She
obviously hadn't connected taking off with leaving him behind.

"No sweetness. Chase is going to stay on
Odera for a while."

"He's not coming with us? But it won't be
the same without him." A crestfallen expression filled Raven's
face.

No, it wouldn't be the same. Nessa willed
the emptiness inside away. "He has his business to attend to, and
we have ours. We're headed to a Shielder base."

The topic of Chase fell by the wayside as
Raven absorbed Nessa's last statement. "A Shielder colony?" She
danced from foot to foot. "Maybe our mother and father will be
there."

Nessa didn't think so, having pieced
together what must have happened to Raven and Brand from Raven's
jumbled descriptions. Their colony had been attacked by Anteks, who
had apparently proceeded in their usual manner. The adults were
slaughtered, and their heads taken to turn in to the Controllers
for bounties. No one bothered to hunt out the children who escaped
into the hills. It was too much trouble, and they would die from
starvation or exposure soon enough.

The Anteks didn't particularly care if slave
traders moved in after the destruction of a colony, looting and
taking young victims to sell as slaves. True, they were Shielder
survivors, but the life expectancy of slaves precluded the
possibility that many would reach adulthood. And if they did—well,
they were still slaves.

"I don't know if we can find your parents,
sweetness," she told Raven. "But if we don't, then you'll have a
new home in the colony."

"With you? If I can't have my mother and
father, then I want to be with you!"

Raven's vehement declaration warmed Nessa's
heart. But she knew the girl would be better off with someone who
could take proper care of her; someone who was a respected member
of the colony.

Someone not infected with Orana.

She tried to shrug off her despondency.
Exhaustion pulled at her. A good night's sleep would help. "Come
on, let's go eat," she urged, offering her hands. Raven came
readily, but Brand dragged from the cockpit, turning to stare at
Chase's chair one last time. He reminded Nessa a little of Lia,
moping after Chase. She urged the child from the room.

Later that evening, she watched the children
slip into slumber. Would sleep come that easily to her? Exhaustion
hung on her like armor, and sweat beaded her forehead. The ship
felt too hot, so she went to adjust the temperature controls. Odd,
but they remained at their usual setting.

With a sigh, she returned to her cabin. She
couldn't bear the thought of using Chase's cabin, of sleeping alone
in that wide bunk. She'd squeeze in with the children. Entering the
lav, Nessa stared into the mirror. For a minute, all appeared
normal. Then she noticed the telltale redness of her eyes.

The first indication of Orana.

Shock reverberated through her. Oh, Spirit,
no! She had eight days—
eight days
! The Orana couldn't be
manifesting this early, unless she'd miscounted the days. Or
perhaps the stress and uncertainty of her situation had sped up the
progression of the virus. Moot considerations, at this point.
Bloodshot eyes, aching body, fever—all pointed to one thing, and
one thing only.

She had active Orana.

Chase entered the Nebula, a recreation club
for the Anteks and other workers stationed on Odera. The sector
Controller base generated the planet's only industry, the arid
terrain having nothing to offer. At this early time of day, few
beings lurked around.

He knew his size and race made his outsider
status obvious, drawing unwanted attention. He wore his helmet with
the visor down to hide his face, and displayed his weapons in plain
view. He'd be recognized as a shadower, not uncommon on Odera, but
hoped his identity would remain anonymous. He didn't want Dansan
forewarned.

He scanned the room before entering, then
strode to the bar. The bartender, a woman of indeterminate age,
eyed him boldly as he approached. She was attractive enough, yet a
world-weary cynicism hardened her features. She probably earned a
lot more off duty than when she served drinks.

"Can I help you?" she purred, placing her
hands on the counter and leaning forward, her generous breasts
pressing against her low-cut tunic.

A vision of smaller breasts, nestled
perfectly in his hands, flashed through Chase's mind. Blazing
hells! Even here, when he must be deadly focused, memories of Nessa
encroached on him. He forced them away.

"I'm looking for Kant."

"Oh." Disappointment flashed through her
artificially tinted emerald eyes. "He's over there, drinking
himself into a stupor, as usual. Can't imagine why you'd have
business with the likes of him."

Chase looked where she pointed, seeing a
hooded figure slouched over a drink. He hadn't expected a Shen,
members of a cultlike group who practiced an ancient religion based
on magic. They usually kept to themselves, following Controller
directives without protest.

Not totally reclusive, though. Shens often
gravitated to where money could be made. Chase knew a group of them
worked on the base. But they weren't known to frequent the bar,
because their religion prohibited drinking. Obviously, this Shen
had forsaken that philosophy.

Chase approached the man warily, watching
everyone around him. He stopped at the table. The Shen didn't move
or acknowledge him in any way. "Kant?"

"Are you McKnight?" The low voice whispered
from the shadow of the deep hood.

"Are you Kant?"

The man lifted his arm, and Chase tensed,
his hand going to his stunner. But the Shen gracefully waved a
long, slender hand toward the opposite chair. "Sit, McKnight."

His hand still on his weapon, Chase slid
into the seat. The tunnel of the hood prevented him seeing his
contact's face, which didn't sit well with him.

"So, you're seeking Dansan?"

The voice sounded sober, contrary to what
the bartender had told Chase. He wouldn't reveal any information
without confirming his contact first. It might be a trap. "Show
yourself, Shen."

The Shen raised his hands, slowly pushing
back the hood, revealing a young man with ebony hair and pale blue
eyes. "Greetings, McKnight. You don't trust me?"

"I don't trust anyone."

"Moriah said to tell you she hopes you liked
the robe."

Moriah. He should have known. A heated rush
flowed through him at the reminder of Nessa in that robe, and their
subsequent lovemaking. He saw her moving with innate sensuality
upon him, her eyes closed, and her expression rapt as passion
overtook her. Even then, she'd radiated an aura of sweet
innocence.

Jolting back to the here and now, Chase
quashed the memory. Time to focus on the matter at hand. So Moriah
had provided this lead on Dansan. At least he knew the report was
legitimate, and that he could trust this contact. He raised his
visor and leaned toward Kant.

"Yes, I'm interested in Dansan."

Kant lifted his hood onto his head and again
hunched over his drink. "She's on Odera to find new recruits. Word
has it some of her soldiers were put out of action on Calt."

Temporarily, anyway. Chase didn't use the
kill setting on his weapons, choosing instead the medium stun
level, which inflicted only surface wounds. He left the killing to
the more sophisticated methods of the Controllers. They had
execution down to a fine art.

Kant's statement made sense. Dansan liked to
persuade susceptible Anteks to desert rank and work for her,
offering unlimited looting as incentive. Chase figured she must
have some method of counteracting the standard Controller mind
indoctrination, or she wouldn't be so successful at luring the
Anteks away.

She seemed to take perverse pleasure in
doing it right beneath the Controllers' noses, and he couldn't
understand why they offered no bounty on her. Only on the hapless
creatures she recruited. Once an Antek had defected, his fate was
sealed, because he could never return to the Controllers without
facing the death penalty.

"Where is she right now?"

"In the barracks at the north end of the
compound."

Her audacity amazed Chase. He placed a pouch
of miterons on the table.

Again a slender hand snaked out, slipping
the pouch beneath the table. "She's a bold one, isn't she? But most
of the troops are at the midday meal. The only soldiers at the
barracks are those being disciplined. Dansan will find willing
defectors there. One more thing—she's dressed like I am."

A Shen tunic would be a good disguise,
especially with the Shen presence on the base. "Thank you, Kant.
And thank Moriah for me when you communicate with her next." Chase
rose, snapping down his visor, and headed for the barracks.

The north barracks edged the far end of the
dusty compound. He kept his helmet on as he approached, the stunner
in one hand and his other hand resting on his gun. Reaching the
barracks, he skirted around the building to check the layout. Two
entries, one at each end, no windows. No brush for cover, but some
crates lined one side of the barracks.

Deciding Dansan would stay near the rear
entrance, in case loyal soldiers returned, Chase opted for that
entry. Standing to one side of the panel, he pried it open a few
inches with his weapon. He glanced in, and there she was. She had
to be the one figure in the Shen robe, talking to a group of Anteks
in disciplinary detention.

DD, as the Controllers called it, consisted
of being stripped naked and held spread-eagled against a metal wall
by use of magnetic shackles. The punishment could last days, with
only water for sustenance. Humiliation was heaped upon the
discomfort, as the DD wall was always in the midst of the barracks,
and the offenders suffered mental and physical torment at the hands
of the other occupants. And yet, it was far better than other
punishments the Controllers meted out.

Chase watched as Dansan leaned toward the
Anteks on the DD wall, gesturing dramatically. The sight brought a
flood of memories pounding into his gut with collision force.

Dansan, speaking eloquently to the leaders
of his colony, Torin, promising her new discovery would enable them
to access the precious veins of iridon running deep underground. A
brilliant research scientist, she had developed a compound that
dissolved the hard layers of shale over the iridon, without
damaging the ore itself.

She offered a cooperative effort to mine the
iridon and share the profits. But her real intent proved to be
treachery. She had engineered a deadly virus that swept through the
colony, resulting in almost total devastation.…

Chase jerked, battling rising nausea. His
futile recollections might allow his prey to get away. He had her
in his sights, and she was unescorted, because her Antek guards
didn't dare set foot on a Controller base. Chase punched the
control pad, and the panel opened fully. He started toward his
nemesis.

"You there! Halt! Drop your weapon and turn
around slowly." The guttural command came from directly behind
him.

Chase froze in disbelief.

"Drop your weapon now!"

Carefully, he released his stunner to the
ground. He saw Dansan look up and back toward the other entry.

"Turn around."

She fled through the entry. He had to stop
her. Chase turned to find two ominous disrupters trained on him by
Antek guards. Blazing hells.