TICEES (77 page)

The four ships landed silently on RIBUS 7 in the Commander’s personal hangar. Korba lifted Chelan down carefully, laying her on the floor while Stose checked her for any adverse effects from the trip.

The doctor nodded that she was okay, and Korba lifted her gently and walked toward his quarters. Korba had no fear of any leakage of information that Chelan was alive from any of the men who had attended him. They were all his personal best, and they knew well of the Lady Chelan, and in turn, they knew all too well the effects her disappearance had had on their Commander.

Korba entered through the security doors at the far end of his workout area and strode quickly along the length of the pool and up into his chambers. The Command Center was empty, and Korba knew that Fremma was on the Bridge.

He laid the pale and unresponsive beauty on his bed as Stose began preparing himself. Korba moved quickly to bring blankets and sheets while Stose laid out the instruments that he would use to repair the damage caused by the birth.

Korba stopped momentarily and looked down into her peaceful face. Then he nodded to Stose to begin. Korba turned and hurried down into the Command Center. With urgency, he began entering the codes that would link him directly to the Imperial Command Center and, hopefully, Dar. Korba waited a few moments for access and then indicated that he and the landing party were aboard RIBUS 7.

The Warlord sat down, anxiously awaiting a response. Then the code came back: ROUTINE PATROL TO DEAD ZONE COMPLETE. NOTHING TO REPORT. Korba slumped forward in relief. Dar had successfully held off the men in the control center that monitored the flybys, and the scanners had not picked up the four ships leaving Iceanea’s atmosphere or the four replacements flying in.

Korba dared not relay any more information, and he would wait for Dar to get hold of him when all was clear. He stood and removed his shroud and weapons, then returned to his chambers. He pulled up a chair by the bedside and sat down quietly.

He looked down at Chelan, his mind and body still in shock. He could not fully comprehend his reunion with her, and his stomach still turned as visions of her lying bleeding in the cavern assaulted his senses. He needed time to adjust and to sort through his emotions.

He drew a deep breath as his eyes moved over her now unfamiliar body, distended by pregnancy and swollen with milk that would never be nursed. He watched Stose work over her, and then he looked back up into the beautiful face he knew so intimately. He thought about her pregnancy and how it had happened, recalling Shan’s dismay.

Eventually, the Warlord smiled to himself. He allowed a fleeting thought to cross his mind. He wondered if she had planned it as a way to ease her inevitable loneliness. But Korba knew his Lady too well. She had done it again. He knew that she had not told Shan of her Earthly cycles, and she had simply been caught.

Korba was interrupted from his thoughts as Stose straightened and turned to him.

“My Lord,” he whispered.

Korba looked up at him and nodded.

“All is well and she will heal fine, though there will be discomfort. I have given her some hormones to speed her recovery and to dry her milk. I’ve also given her a sedative. Even though she is out now, it probably wouldn’t be long before she came around, so I gave her the drug because I don’t want her alert and thrashing around until she has had time to rest and stabilize.”

Korba nodded. “How long?” he asked quietly.

Stose paused. “She’ll probably start drifting into coherency sometime tomorrow afternoon, Sire. I could bring her around sooner if—”

Korba held up his hand halting Stose. “No, she needs the rest, and I need the time to think.”

Stose nodded at him but became very still, the feral aura that suddenly surrounded the Warlord unsettling him.

Korba looked at Stose’s blood-soaked hands, and his eyes narrowed. “Ticees did this to her,” he hissed venomously.

Stose’s breath caught. He was completely thrown by Korba’s comment, but he knew that look on his Commander’s features. It was not wise to ask any questions. Stose could tell that the Warlord was exercising tremendous control over his emotions, and Stose did not want to be around when the lid blew off.

Stose watched Korba’s icy gaze return to Chelan, and the temperature in the chambers seemed to drop. He felt a shiver go through him, and he turned away quickly to clean his hands. He removed all the soiled materials from the bed and covered Chelan with stacks of fresh blankets. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to Korba, daring to speak. “Will you be staying with her, my Lord?”

Korba nodded, his eyes never leaving her face.

Stose hesitated. He was becoming almost more concerned for Korba’s well-being than for Chelan’s. He knew the little alien would heal physically, but Korba’s state of mind was another matter. “Would you prefer that I remained here also, my Lord?” he asked cautiously.

“No,” Korba whispered.

Stose paused, then turned and started down the stairway toward the Command Center.

Korba finally tore his eyes from Chelan and looked at Stose’s back. “Thank you, my friend,” he called after him.

Stose turned to him and smiled. “It is the least I can do, Sire. I will return shortly to check on her.”

Korba nodded and looked back at Chelan. He sat motionless as he soaked in her beautifully serene features. He knew that it would be a long time before her abundant and deep emotional wounds began to heal, and he wondered just what he could do to could help her. He shuddered to think of telling her about Shan’s death, but Korba understood that she would want to know. He was also well aware that Shan could have been instrumental in her recovery, and Korba wished with all his heart that the warrior had seen through his own pain. But forcing the man to endure the emotional fallout emanating from his colossal losses, both realized and those still to come, was cruel. Chelan would recover; Shan never had.

Korba heard motion in the Command Center, and he knew that Fremma had returned. Standing slowly, he started out of his chambers and stopped at the entrance to the Center. He watched Fremma’s back as the officer worked through a systems check.

Suddenly, Fremma reeled, surprise registering on his face at Korba’s presence. “My Lord,” he gasped. “No one informed me of your arrival.”

Korba smiled weakly. “Relax, my good man. No one knew of it.”

Fremma watched him carefully as the Warlord descended the steps slowly. “I thought you weren’t due on board until tomorrow because of the Vixen mission.”

Korba sat down heavily. “Dar has taken that over,” he commented almost absently.

Fremma flinched. Korba was acting strangely to say the least, distant and uncharacteristically detached. Fremma did not know where to begin or if it was simply wise to keep his mouth shut. Finally, he risked speaking. “Did you talk with Shan, my Lord?” and Fremma saw Korba stop breathing. The warrior froze.

“Shan is dead.”

Fremma was staggered. “Dead!” he exclaimed. “How?”

Korba looked up at him. “It’s a long and complicated story,” he uttered quietly.

Fremma glanced at the floor as his mind searched for possible answers, but he was dumbstruck. Fremma started to speak, but Korba shook his head at him.

“I will explain as soon as Dar arrives.”

Fremma sat down stiffly. He knew that a bomb was about to drop, and it would be no small explosion.

Just then the Command Center doors opened, and Dar strode in, tossing his flight helmet carelessly aside. Korba stood. “Damn it, Korba. What the hell is going on? I just met Stose in the hall and he said that—” Dar stopped as Korba raised his hand, halting his questions.

Fremma was suddenly on his feet. “What’s going on around here?” he asked warily as his eyes darted between the two Warlords. “What does Stose have to do with anything?”

Dar was wallowing in confusion, but Korba ignored him and turned to Fremma. His voice was soft and low. “We have a guest on board, my friend, a very dear … and a very fragile guest.”

Dar felt a tide of dread surge throughout his body, and his face fell.

Fremma was beside himself as he caught Dar’s reaction. “Who?” he demanded.

Korba took him by the shoulders and pressed him into his chair. “Chelan,” he whispered.

Fremma’s face drained of all color. He was stunned beyond comprehension. “Chelan?” he repeated, his voice almost inaudible.

Korba nodded.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Korba moved back and sat down in his chair. “She’s in my chambers, but she is unconscious and will remain that way until tomorrow.”

Dar almost stumbled down the stairs, and he sat in front of Korba. “What happened?” he asked, his distress evident.

“She will be okay,” Korba assured. “But she will need time, a long time to heal emotionally.”

Dar and Fremma both remained very still.

Korba looked at Fremma. “Chelan has been in the Dead Zone these past two years, and it was she who attended Shan.”

Fremma blinked, not sure he was hearing properly, but Korba continued.

“When Shan took us back there this morning, we found her near death from hemorrhaging.” Korba took a deep breath. “It seems that she had—” Korba stopped, trying hard to deal with his own surfacing emotions. He lowered his voice and looked down. “It seems that they had conceived a child, but Chelan had kept that hidden from Shan, afraid that he would feel trapped by her. He returned to us and the service never knowing about her pregnancy.”

Dar and Fremma remained motionless, their eyes riveted to Korba.

“She had given birth early this morning to Shan’s baby, but the baby was stillborn, and in the process of a long and unattended labor, she hemorrhaged.”

Korba looked into Fremma’s ashen face. “Shan took his son into the Dead Zone, and there he ended his life.”

Dar hung his head, unable to speak or move.

Fremma was numb. He still hadn’t come to grips with the fact that Chelan was alive, let alone anything else. He looked toward Korba’s chambers and rose slowly. His mouth was dry, and his legs felt like lead, but he needed to see her. Ignoring Dar and Korba, he moved up the stairs and into the dim light of the chambers. He edged quietly to the bed, and there his eyes beheld the fallen beauty. He slumped to his knees before her. He reached for her, touching her cheek gently, and suddenly his heart erupted simultaneously with joy and sorrow.

Fremma sat down on the floor and reached under the blankets. He found one of her slender hands, and he held it tightly. He lowered his head to the bed and closed his eyes.

Dar finally roused himself from his stupor and looked at the disproportionately calm Warlord. “What will you do?” he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.

Korba looked back him. “Wait,” he said quietly. “Simply wait,” and Korba looked away.

There was a long interval of silence, and then Dar stood. “I have to get back and get the Vixen mission off the ground. What should I tell Toran? He leaves tomorrow with RIBUS 6 for several months.”

“Tell him everything, but it goes no further. Chelan will remain here indefinitely where she is safe. Ticees will never know of her.”

Dar was puzzled by Korba’s apparent complacency, but he knew that not all was as it seemed, and undoubtedly a tempest was brewing within his friend. Dar looked up into the darkness of Korba’s chambers, but he was not sure he could bear to go to her while she has hurt. He looked back at Korba. “I will come see her later,” he whispered, and he turned and left.

Korba rose and ascended silently into his chambers. He stood over the slumped warrior. Korba touched Fremma’s head reassuringly and then moved around him and sat down. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees with his head down. “She will be okay, Fremma.”

Fremma nodded weakly. “I know,” he whispered. “I don’t know her story, but I know that she deserved none of this, Sire. She fights battles far greater than any of ours, and some of her wounds will never heal.”

Korba sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. Fremma was right. Chelan had struggled continually to learn his people’s ways, trying to accept them and be comfortable with them. And just when she should have been feeling safe and secure within the inner walls of the Empire, she had been mentally, emotionally, and physically raped. She hadn’t deserved any of the suffering that had befallen her right from the time she stumbled onto the Calley landing crew.

Korba looked down at his gloved hands. His world to her must now seem to be full of predatory, shrouded men, willing at any time to take advantage of her in any way they could. How could she ever heal when the men at the top of the Empire had abandoned her, and the Emperor himself had perpetrated against her the most brutal artifice of them all?

Suddenly, Korba wondered about her request long ago to return to Calley, and his throat constricted. Could she be happy there, or was she at the point of no return?

Korba watched Fremma cling to Chelan’s deathly white hand, and the Warlord shivered. He didn’t even know if she would accept him back as her man, and he closed his eyes against the painful possibilities. Only time would tell, and for him, time was crucial.

“Fremma,” he whispered.

Fremma looked up at him.

“Will you stay with her for a while?”

Fremma nodded. “You know I will, Sire.”

Korba nodded back at him and then left, heading for the Command Center. Time was indeed of the essence, and he had exactly five weeks of it. Korba began running codes through the vastly powerful computer systems as his magnificent mind went to work like it had never worked before. He needed lists of warriors—names, profiles, histories, locations, orders, timetables, and assignments. He needed lists of weapons, inventories, locations, accessibilities, and statistics. He needed data on officers—his, Toran’s, Dar’s, and Ticees’. He needed their physical and psychological profiles, bloodlines, abilities, and loyalties. And he needed the precise positions of each and every RIBUS peppered throughout the galaxy.

Over the next five weeks his mind would work coolly and efficiently through every element of the Empire and of the men and women that made it work. He would leave no detail overlooked, no stone unturned, and no possibility unforeseen. He was the greatest Overlord the Empire had ever known. And in the very near future, he would prove that—vividly and viciously.