Starkissed (5 page)
The attack was “dumb”, to use the
saàloh
’s word, but he'd had to try. Another tenet of the Warrior: Always attempt the impossible. He had done his duty this time and had gained nothing but aches and pains and burns…and the contempt of the
saàloh.
Sometimes the impossible was improbable.
He surveyed the room—Liquidator, waste receptacle, comm panel. His hands were deadlier weapons than circuitry components! The bunks. He crossed the room in three painful strides and pulled the top one down. Wire mesh, surrounded by a soft aluminum frame, supported a thin mat.
If he broke off a piece of the frame, could he short-circuit the forcefield with it? He thought not… Always attempt the impossible. With a hiss of exasperation to duty and responsibility, he grabbed one of the shorter tubular ends and braced himself against the bunk with his left arm. He pulled with all his strength. The metal screeched as the wire mesh broke free. Waves of pain shot through his hand, and his left arm began to throb anew. He wanted to scream with the metal. Instead, he released the tube, now jutting out at an angle.
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Starkissed
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He collapsed to a sitting position, his back against the wall. He held his hand, palm up, in his lap and positioned his left arm so that the throbbing was minimal. He breathed heavily, waiting for the pain to subside.
“What are you doing?” the
saàloh
called to him.
He inhaled deeply. “The imposssible.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
Shame washed over him. As the Warrior he was bound to protect those in his care.
At the moment, the
saàloh
was under his protection, even if she was human, and he failed again and again to save her as well as himself. He had been able to save his people many times over. Why couldn’t he save one small
saàloh
?
“Have you hurt yourself again?”
“Not again.” He looked down at the torn scabs on his hand. In a few hours he would be able to try again. Perhaps by the time his skin regenerated, the rest of him would be well enough to make the attempt.
“Commander?”
“Yesss…” he said, trying to keep the discouragement from his voice.
“I’m going to try to sleep now.” He heard her lower the bunk. “I suggest you do the same. Get some rest. We don’t know what Steve will do next. We may have only a few hours. Lights zero.”
He listened as she sat on the bunk, the metal creaking. Then she stretched out, her clothing brushing the mattress cover as she found a position so she could rest. He imagined her lying as she had on the bed in her cabin, her pink lips moist and slightly parted, her round eyes changing from blue to green.
He thrust himself up in one motion. The sudden movement set his leg on fire, and the throbs doubled in his shoulder. He welcomed the pain as it overcame another, more inappropriate bodily reaction. By the sands, why did the human
saàloh
do this to him?
Breathing heavily, he let down the lower bunk. Careful of sore muscles, he stretched out, his feet dangling over the end. In the name of the rock, sleep sounded like a luxury he needed to help his body heal.
“Lightsss zero,” he murmured and closed his eyes.
When Leith settled down on her bunk, she didn’t think she would be able to sleep.
Her mind wouldn’t shut down, racing over the events of the past few hours and trying to www.samhainpublishing.com
28
Lanette
Curington
make sense of Steve’s betrayal. She had listened as the bunk groaned beneath the Commander’s weight and he turned off the light. Some time later, she had finally fallen asleep.
Now, as she woke, her heart thudded wildly. A sound lingered in the air, a faint echo reverberating at the edge of her consciousness. Had the Commander called out?
She sat up, swinging her legs over the side. Strategically placed nightlights, creating a muted glow in the anteroom and cells, dispelled the darkness. She heard it again, the sound that woke her—a distant thump somewhere in the hold.
“Commander?”
“Yesss, I hear it. It ssseemsss Hancock completed hisss deal with the Cruciansss.”
She dropped back onto the bunk and closed her eyes. The waiting was worse than Steve holding a Blaser on her. This time it was easy to fall back asleep. Too easy.
The next time she woke, Phillips brought foodpacks. She shaded her eyes against the anteroom light while he keyed in a code to release the forcefield a few centimeters from the floor. By her watch it had been three hours since Steve locked them up. Phillips shoved several packs in each cell, then quickly reset the forcefield.
“That’ll take care of you for a while,” he growled.
“You know my father will never rest until he finds out the truth,” Leith began, but Phillips scurried out without acknowledging her, and the anteroom light went out.
She closed her eyes again and heard the crinkle of a foodpack wrapper and then the crunch of freeze-dried food as the Commander ate. Her appetite gone, the thought of food made her sick.
“Eat,
saàloh.
You need to keep up your ssstrength for the tasssksss ahead.”
“I don’t see the point, Commander. Steve said he wasn’t going to kill us outright, but we can be sure that whatever he has planned, we won’t survive long.”
“Where there isss life, there isss hope. A belief of humansss, I think.”
“Yes, it’s one of our sayings. You can count on a human to have a saying for every occasion. Sometimes they contradict one another. For instance, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ Yet, we have, ‘Out of sight, out of mind’.” She rested her arm across her eyes. “Sayings are just clever words strung together. They have no meaning.”
“‘Out of sssight, out of mind’,” he repeated thoughtfully. “It doesss not mention the heart. Sssomeone can be out of the mind for a time, but never out of the heart. Sssss, the two do not contradict at all.”
She couldn’t find fault in his reasoning.
“If you do not eat,
saàloh
, they may not give you any more food. Now you are not hungry, but if many daysss passs, you will wisssh you had the food.”
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Steve might find it amusing to toy with them by withholding food. She set the lights on three and retrieved the packs. She punched in the code for boiling water then tore off the wrapper.
“It’s better if you pour hot water over it and let it set a few minutes.”
“Isss it? Our foodpacksss are meant to be eaten dry.” She heard him punch in the code. “In a warssship, ssspace isss at a premium; in a war, time isss at a premium.”
She poured the boiling water over the piles of freeze-dried crumbs in the plastic tray, turning them into a mush-like consistency. Each section had its own flavor, and although the granules didn’t resemble what they represented, they satisfied the palate and provided essential protein, vitamins, and minerals a body needed to survive. A human body.
“These are made for human consumption. Can you survive eating nothing but this?”
“Yesss. My needsss are not much different than yoursss.”
She smiled at the double entendre. She had to remember his English left something to be desired, so he had no idea what he said or how many ways it could be taken.
Nevertheless, the statement brought images to her mind that were best forgotten.
She ate and tossed the empty tray in the waste chute. She heard his waste receptacle flush.
It was time to sleep, time to empty her mind of
everything
and find refuge in a dreamless void. She crept onto the bunk and put out the lights.
This time she woke with the Commander calling to her.
“Are you awake,
saàloh
?”
“I am now,” she mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She glanced at her watch. Another four hours had passed. Not long enough. She rolled over and closed her eyes again.
“Wake up,
saàloh.
Too much sssleep isss asss detrimental asss not enough.”
“What does it matter?” she muttered.
“You are compensssating for lack of physssical ssstimuli.” There was a pause.
“Sss’t!”
Her eyes sprang open. She desperately tried to free her mind of what his “physssical ssstimuli” suggested.
“Boredom,” she said through a yawn.
“What,
saàloh
?”
“You mean that I’m bored.”
“Yes,
saàloh.
You need to keep your sssensesss sssharpened, to be prepared for what isss to come.”
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Lanette
Curington
She sat up on the side of the bunk. She loved the sound of the word he called her,
saàloh
, but she was afraid to ask what it meant. It might mean “bitch” or some other disparaging term. If so, she didn’t want to know. She preferred to think it meant “dear” or
“darling”, something mildly affectionate.
“How do you propose I do that, Commander?”
“Talk to me. Pace your cell for the exercissse. Look at sssomething you have never ssseen before.”
I want to look at you,
she thought.
I want to rest my eyes on another living being.
His disembodied voice, especially now that it resounded with disapproval, had begun to get on her nerves.
She stood, pain gripping her abdomen. A full bladder screamed for relief. She had to do it, as embarrassing as it was. She dropped her pants and prayed that Steve or one of the others didn’t pick this moment to run a bed check. There was no way to escape. If they managed to break free of the cells, there was nowhere to go. The ship scanner would locate them in a heartbeat—by the sound of their heartbeats.
The waste receptacle automatically flushed when she stood. She closed her eyes for those few seconds, then buckled her belt.
J’Qhir waited a few minutes.
“I am going to try again,
saàloh
,” he called to her.
“Try what?”
“What I tried before.”
“Which is?”
“The imposssible.”
“Oh. Is it more possible now?”
“Marginally. The burnsss on my handsss have healed.”
“Already?”
“Yesss. Zi ssskin regeneratesss quickly. My ssshoulder doesss not throb now.”
“What, exactly, were you trying to do?”
“I attempted to pull one of the bunksss apart. The metal frame—”
“To use as a weapon?”
“No. I will try to ssshort out the forcefield.”
“It won’t work.”
“Perhapsss not. But at leassst I am doing sssomething.”
“A waste of energy.”
He clenched his teeth. “At leassst I am not sssleeping away the few remaining hoursss of my life.”
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“To each his own.”
A pause.
“Another human saying. One for every occasion, remember?”
Another pause.
“Do you think it will work, Commander?”
“I do not know.”
J’Qhir braced his left arm against the bunk and yanked as hard as he could. The metal whined and his arm began to throb again. He twisted the tube, and with one last shriek it broke off in his hand.
He rubbed his shoulder. Now, how to do this without electrifying himself again. He couldn’t hold the metal with his bare hands. He needed—
He looked down. Warmth crept into his face. Gloves. Tucked into his waistband.
War gloves, two layers of wool for warmth with a layer of rubber in between. In a war, in the heat of battle, one did not have to worry about electrocution when making emergency repairs. He hissed in exasperation. Why hadn’t he thought of the gloves when he charged the forcefield? His only answer was that his mind was clouded. His thinking had become impaired by—
“When are you going to do it?”
“Now.” He jerked on the gloves and shoved the tube into the forcefield. Sparks showered him and sizzles, crackles, pops filled his ears. He held it until the tube started to bend and twist, but the electronic whine did not lessen.
He pulled the tube free, and silence settled over them. He tossed the piece of scrap, and it landed in a corner with a clank.
“Didn’t work, did it?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. I hoped it would.”
“I, alssso.”
“Any more ideas?”
“Not at the moment.”
They ate again, pouring hot water over the granules. Most of the flavors he couldn’t identify.
“Mmmm, banana pudding. My favorite. What did you get?”
“I do not know. I am not familiar with the tassste of human food.”
“The little section in the center is dessert. What does it taste like?”
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Lanette
Curington
He took a bite. It was difficult to describe unknown flavors. “Sssweet. Rich.
Sssatisssfying.”
“Must be chocolate cake. I had that last time.”
The door to the anteroom opened, and Hancock, Phillips, and a third man walked in.
“Sorry to interrupt lunch, but it’s time to go.”
J’Qhir tossed the tray in the waste chute and stood, prepared. If there were an instant when he thought Hancock was off-guard, he was ready to take full advantage of it as long as it wouldn’t endanger the
saàloh
or himself.
“What are you going to do with us, Steve?” Her voice trembled. Before she had sounded relaxed, but now J’Qhir could hear her fear.
“If I tell you now, it won’t be a surprise.” Hancock punched keys, and J’Qhir’s forcefield shimmered out. “Come on out, Rep. Easy now. Carter, tie him up.”
Hancock and Phillips held their weapons on him while Carter locked his hands in plasticuffs behind his back. Then Carter fastened his ankles with only enough slack for a half step. Hancock released the forcefield on the other cell, and Carter secured Leith’s hands behind her back also. He knelt to lock her ankles.
“Never mind. She won’t run with the Rep hobbled. Besides, where would she go?”
He laughed.
All chances were gone, J’Qhir mused. He should have kicked Carter in the teeth while he knelt, but either Hancock or Phillips could have blasted him. That would have left the
saàloh
to face Hancock alone, and that was unacceptable.