That… wasn’t ideal. I didn’t like having to trust someone other than my own crew with our extraction from the planet. It still bothered me that Dani’s entire Kertinal protection detail at her research facility had been replaced by mercenaries hired by a crimelord to get her. How did I know we could trust this new escort? Then again, what was the likelihood of that kind of corruption at an actual military base? The security here would be much stricter, even if this base seemed fairly low-staffed to my trained eye.
“Listen, Mitnick, are there any strange ships in orbit? Dani thinks it’s the Crimelord Koratalin that’s after her research. Any sign of more hostiles? Did you manage to track the mercenaries that chased us the other day?” I wouldn’t feel easy unless I knew where they were. They could be lying in wait right now, knowing we were headed for this location, the one place where we could leave the planet. This could all be one big trap, and the possibility made me extremely uneasy.
Mitnick didn’t get a chance to answer. Asmoded took control of the conversation smoothly, his cool, confident tone laying my worries to rest. “Mitnick tracked them to the landing strip, but they were escorted by a Kertinal vessel off-planet, and then out of the solar system. You should be in the clear. They’re very anxious to get us out of their horns, too, so you better hurry.” I checked the landing strip visually, as if that could confirm the captain’s story. Itwasa fairly empty base, with only a handful of vessels and not many places to hide.
“Right, yeah, hurry, Jaxin. They’re about to stage some kind of massive attack they don’t want us to witness—probably brutally smash any resistance from the locals. Harper has been begging me to plant drones to film it all so she can expose any atrocities…” Mitnick cut in like he had every right to interrupt the captain, and I could hear Asmoded’s impatient hiss. If not for the gloomy words the hacker had spoken, I might have slapped him down, verbally, for it myself. Dani’s shocked gasp was much more pressing, though, her eyes wide and anxious.
“We’re on our way, one mile out.” The call ended, and I hurried to tuck my mate under my arm. “Sorry, little one. There’s nothing we can do about that. Let’s hope Taktak and his people have nothing to do with this uprising and are safely hiding out in their hidden city. I think that perhaps the Kertinal don’t know about its location, or they wouldn’t have built this strip so close to it.” It was a cold comfort, but the only one I could offer. After all, we both knew that Taktak was a warrior through and through, and a leader to his people. There was no telling if they were part of a rebellion against the Kertinal Empire or not.
Standing at the edge of the cleared area, we had been noticed by the watchtowers. A gate was opened, and a small glider was headed our way—not your typical civilian model, but one with an open cargo bed and a mounted laser cannon, manned by one determined Kertinal soldier. Bex would make short work of the vehicle, but I didn’t think we’d make any friends doing that. I slung her to my back instead, assuring the approaching vehicle that we were no threat. “Come, let’s greet our ride home.”
Chapter 21
Danitalin
The glider was not a comfortable ride, mostly because we had several guns and suspicious eyes aimed our way. Jaxin held me in his lap, hugging me close, and that helped. The hostile feelings, the impatience to get rid of us, it tingled heavily in the air and pressed against my skin. Kind of like a thorn in your foot, irritating you with every move. Like an uncomfortable screech just beyond your range of hearing.
Very little was said, just a few barked orders from a Kertinal with stripes on his uniform. “This way, the shuttle is waiting.” He seemed even more anxious to get rid of us than his underlings were. I hoped that meant he simply wanted nothing to do with my cure and me. We were a disturbance in their plans that they needed to remove, that was it. Icouldn’t shake the feeling that there might be more to it: the war they were waging against Taktak’s people, which I very much wanted to prevent—but knew I couldn’t.
It wasn’t right that the Kertinal Empire could invade an inhabited world and claim it as their own. This was Taktak’s world, not theirs, but in the eyes of most civilized societies in the Zeta Quadrant, that hardly mattered. Power was power, and even the Aderian government wasn’t getting involved in this. I wasn’t even sure what they were after, because the Kertinal usually only invaded if there was something to gain: precious ores or a tactical advantage.
The shuttle we were delivered to was silver, sleek, and not very big. It did not look to me to be of Kertinal design either, but even the Kertinillian Army used ships from the Strewn Shipyard, since they were the best. Perhaps it was something new from there; I hardly cared enough to keep up to date with the latest shuttle models. I opened my mouth to ask Jaxin, but just then our Kertinal escort’s impatient boss began talking again.
“This is all we can spare right now.” His dual-layered voice gave me the chills because it reminded me just a little too much of D’aron. In fact, my chin itched as I remembered the spot where the head of security had cut me with the blade that tipped his tail. Jaxin’s crew had killed that murderous bastard, but that was not giving me the comfort it should have. Not when I was faced with another male who looked and sounded much like him. Except this officer, who hadn’t even introduced himself, didn’t have pale pink and purple lines; his were a reddish hue instead.
The small shuttle had only a single Kertinal pilot at the helm; the officer hadn’t been kidding whenhe said this was all they could spare. My stomach twisted with worry for Taktak, because that probably meant they were about to move on his people very soon. I wanted to turn on the Kertinal officer and implore him to delay the attack, to reconsider. Jaxin hauled me aboard the shuttle with a warning glare. He was probably attuned enough to me by now to know what I was thinking, and he didn’t want me to say anything. Fine—it would be pointless anyway, but it still felt wrong not to try.
The hatch hissed shut right behind us, with zero warning or ceremony. The two of us were instructed by the Kertinal pilot, in a cool tone, to take our seats and strap in. He seemed… off to me somehow, annoyed, anxious, and that probably had to do with missing out on possible action. He must hate having to ferry us off the planet when his buddies were all about to prepare for war. That was exactly the kind of thinking I knew to expect from a Kertinal soldier.
Jaxin grunted a very grumpy warning as he urged me into the nearest jumpseat. “Patience. We’re here now, aren’t we? You’ll be rid of us soon enough.” His hands were gentle as he strapped my harness around me but quick and capable as he secured my bag of samples. I watched him and realized he was needling the pilot on purpose by taking his time securing our things—and himself. The male was not allowed to take off, per Kertinal protocol, until Jaxin had secured himself in his own jumpseat.
When the last strap was secured and Jaxin’s laser cannon cradled in his lap, the shuttle lifted off without warning. Just a quick confirmation with the flight tower, and we were off. It wasn’t until we were angled skyward and my eyes locked with the approaching darkness of space that I felt it. “Jaxin!Stop him!” I called out, just as a hatch came slamming down between us and the pilot. No! Too late… How had I not realized that the pilot’s anxiety had nothing to do with the mounting activity on Radin? This was all about us.
Jaxin roared as the hatch slammed down, yanked free from his harness, and raised his cannon as if he planned to fire it. A shot inside this tiny shuttle would kill us as much as the pilot, perhaps cause such structural damage that the shuttle would crash. He reined himself in at the last moment, raising his comm to call for aid instead.
I wanted to undo my own flight harness to help somehow, but the hiss of gas above my head made me freeze and yank my eyes up in alarm. What was that? I smelled it—faint, but present—before I could identify where it was coming from. A drug, like the faintest hint of sulfur in the air. Jaxin and I looked at one another, recognizing it at the same time, and then my eyes rolled back and I passed out. Jaxin’s angry roar accompanied me into the dark, and then I was all alone.
It felt like I’d blinked once, not been out cold for hours, but when I woke, everything had changed. Gone were the shuttle, the dirty and partially improvised clothes, and Jaxin. I was lying on a soft couch, and someone had cleaned and redressed me in typical Aderian clothing: soft pants, a flowing blouse, and a jacket fit for work in a lab or hospital at any time. My hair was braided too, but just at the temples, so it left my ears exposed.
I expanded my empathic senses before I did anything else, searching for only one thing: Jaxin. I touched the minds and emotions of dozens upon dozens of people—some signatures more familiar than others—but it wasn’tuntil I’d reached almost as far as I could that I found him: a massive wall of cold rage and terrible fear. His mind was as familiar to me as my own, and his feelings as obvious as those of anyone else. He was unhurt, though his chest muscles ached, overtaxed and not entirely in shape yet, after recovering from that terrible injury.
Knowing he was alive made me feel strong enough to face what I otherwise couldn’t. The familiar signature of emotions in the other room. Koratalin was here. I didn’t know what to think of that, or how to feel. She’d been a friend, a sister, something good that I’d lost when I’d cut ties with a father who, I’d learned, was nothing but evil. Now I knew Koratalin wasn’t any better, and she’d somehow disguised that from me. She was here to steal my cure, force me to make it, and then use it for her own nefarious purpose.
Rising slowly, I tested the limits of my body by dancing through several of my favorite Yadasca poses. It did not relax me, and it did not help guard me against the press of feelings closing in around me, either. Too many people were crammed aboard this spaceship, in close quarters, and feeling dark, unpleasant things—anger, greed, lust, and a pervasive amount of fear. It was not nearly as bad as being held hostage with my terrified colleagues for days, but it came close.
Perhaps Yadasca was not enough to calm and steady me, and I grasped for another tool I’d recently learned: Jaxin’s mind-numbing exercises. They did not work on me the same way they did on a Rummicaron mind; they could never mask my feelings or push them away entirely. But as I breathed through them with closed eyes, it did seem like they put a little distance between me and the feelings of others around me. It helped, even if it was only a little.
The door hissed open then, and Koratalin glided inside, her footsteps hurried, almost rushed, but not quite. She wasn’t the same woman as before, even if she did feel familiar. Her face was the same; her hair was even done the same, with a comb glittering with emeralds by her left ear. She smiled at me with the same almost motherly concern, and her embrace swept me away in a cloud of expensive perfume and warmth, just like I remembered. Still, she was different, because I was different.
“Danitalin!” she gushed, with the perfect hints of warm concern and happiness at seeing me. It feltsoreal that I struggled to figure out what was really going on, because Iknewit couldn’t be real. Not if she was really the person who had sent those mercenaries to take my team and me hostage, or hunt me through the jungle. Everything Hadralin—our father—ever said and did had hidden his true nature from my empathic gift. Now, I had to believe that Koratalin could do the same somehow. Some Aderians were like that, gifted with something opposite of empathy.
I lingered in the embrace for just a few seconds, memorizing it—perhaps comparing it to my recollections of the past. I wasnotthe same; I kept telling myself that. I’d seen things since my sister and I last met. The darkness of that Rummicaron world, with all its Roka-addicted people; the effects of the pollution on their bodies. I’d met Jaxin, and in the short time I’d known him, he’d changed me on a fundamental level.
I had an understanding of my gift, and better control than I’d ever had. That was thanks to him, thanks to the subtle nuances in his feelings beneath the cool armor. His Rummicaron mind exercises were helpingme here, too, letting me feel a calm through the hurt that I would otherwise not have known. I let that feeling guide me, anchored in the solid knowledge that I’d made a male love me who wasn’t supposed to know what love was. Jaxin was all I needed, and he gave me the strength to stand firm now, too.
My gift unfurled like a flower in my mind, not spreading across the ship just to find Jaxin’s mind, but curling through the room and around Koratalin to sniff out the truth. What was beneath that false concern? What was the truth? She was talking about how much she’d missed me, and how relieved she was that she’d managed to rescue me from that awful mercenary. At the same time, her questions probed at what I was doing now, how my cure was going.
I deflected her question with a “You’re not interested in my nerdy science stuff! Tell me about your life, Koratalin.” It made her frown; a flicker of something shifted beneath her warm welcome. I focused on it, pulled on it like it was a thread to unravel. Pull it, and things started to collapse like a house of cards. It was like all my experience sliding beneath Jaxin’s emotionless shields was coming in handy now. There the truth was, staring me in the face from one moment to the next.
