by Laura Kaighn
Voice trembling, Dorinda avowed, “I won’t live without him, Michael.” She squeezed Coty’s hand with her conviction. Then Dorinda marched out into the corridor accompanied by Domenazreli. Behind her she could not witness the grim exchange between her captain, Yolonda and Jonas, nor notice that Coty and their Kin then followed close behind.
Dorinda’s heart thundered at the sight of the bound and still unconscious Vesar being dragged in through the transport’s open hatch like a rolled carpet. Grabbing her long gown in one hand, she scrambled in after him.
When Domenazreli turned to close the hatch, he was knocked aside. Two urgent Kinpanions bolted into the vehicle. “They stay!” he bellowed, his protest echoing about the cabin.
“Go on, Tundra,” Dorinda sputtered from beside her supine husband. “I’ll take care of him.” Reluctantly, the malamute whined then leaped back through the hatch. The forlorn otter only mewed pitifully. “Good bye, Noah.” Dorinda sobbed as he too lowered his head and slid from their presence.
* * *
Outside the bay, out of Dorinda’s view, Capt. Coty gritted his teeth and backed away. Matters of Vesar treason were beyond the human captain’s power. As he helplessly watched from the anteroom, Coty could only curse his impotence. The Vesar transport fired up its engines, rose from the deck, and whisked away his two best friends. He prayed they’d meet again among the stars. With the vessel’s departure, the captain was again alone. Coty was oblivious of Aztec’s moaning sympathies. The hyacinth macaw grasped his new Bondmate’s shoulder and bowed his brilliant cobalt head in shared defeat.
* * *
From the floor of the Vesar transport, Dorinda sniffled quietly. Her Vesar husband lay slumped across her lap. “Silence, Khumahn,” Domenazreli growled. “He will suffer worse than a broken collarbone if you continue your sniveling.”
It seemed an eternity before Vesarius regained consciousness. Groaning, he shifted to sit. “Shh,” Dorinda advised quietly. “Lie still, Sarius.”
The Vesar opened pain-rimmed eyes and tried to focus on the angelic face above him. “You … should not have come, Green Eyes,” he moaned wriggling his bound hands. “I do not want you present at my execution.”
“You’re not going to die, Sarius.” Her tremulous voice betrayed her angst. “I won’t let them kill you.”
“We are powerless to stop them,” Vesarius countered gruffly. “I am guilty of murder.”
“No,” Dorinda argued. “You were being controlled. The rebel Orthops had you brainwashed, programmed. They commanded you through that ... that thing.”
“You have evidence of this?” Domenazreli queried from the front seat. His sinister eye was a crescent of challenge against her claim.
“Yes,” Dorinda asserted. “On the Pompeii. Dr. Tjon removed an organic chip from his spine. An Orthop control device. It’s being analyzed.”
“Pity you do not have it with you,” Domenazreli consoled clicking his tongue. “The physical evidence may have supported your case.”
“Turn us around,” Dorinda commanded. “Take us back to the Pompeii so I can get it.”
Domenazreli was shaking his head. “I have obtained all I need. I recorded a visual and audio account of the attack. No other evidence is required by Vesar law.”
“Justice, Domenazreli?” Dorinda dared. “This is Vesar justice? You really are barbarians.”
“Dori!” Vesarius barked. Her husband sat up grimacing sharply at the injury to his right shoulder. “I contributed to murder,” he growled. “There is no refuting the facts.” Then his obsidian eyes softened to solemn velvet. “I am appalled that you have been drawn into this yourself.”
“Fortunate for Vesar that I still live, eh, Commander?” Domenazreli pressed a smug grin. “Otherwise your treason may have gone unnoticed.” He jerked his chin at the newlyweds’ attire. “You obviously felt no remorse for your actions, as is evident by the festivities onboard your ship.” Dorinda watched the Vesar diplomat adjust the sling over his left stump and harrumph without humor. “To think you actually stooped to human tradition ... to marry this female.” He chuckled deeply, like a looming storm. “It will be a pleasure to be rid of you both.”
“Go to hell,” Dorinda swore.
“Ah, you will,” Domenazreli assured. He spun back to the front of the transport ignoring Dorinda’s fuming silence. For nearly an hour she kept her thoughts, though her lower lip trembled and pouted in trepidation.
* * *
Vesarius, too, fumed. His earlier guilt was amplified by Domenazreli’s intention of executing Dorinda as well. Then slowly, through steady breaths, the Vesar calmed his thundering heart and riotous mind. Only with a clear head could he devise a plan to exonerate his wife of all involvement.
If only Dorinda and he could be alone to discuss this. Then an image flashed into his mind’s eye, of Coty’s concerned face. Tundra! The image changed – a huge cobalt bird perched atop Coty’s shoulder. Yes, now they could communicate across space.
Vesarius cleared his throat roughly and wriggled to sit up straighter in the transport’s narrow aisle. A sharp stab at his shoulder made him cough. Any harder and his father’s sword would have shattered the double scapulae and ruptured his heart. Gingerly, Vesarius shifted his buttocks to lean against one seat and fold his legs. “So,” he began his data collecting. “You will wait to kill me, eh, Domenazreli? Why not now, before your guards, and while I am still bound?”
Domenazreli did not turn to look at him. Instead the older warrior chuckled menacingly and spoke over his shoulder. “You are correct in thinking I want that glory for myself. But you must understand, Grilcmzáe. I bring you back to Vesar for the good of our people. It is they I consider, not my own desires.”
“You would want my continued dishonor?” Vesarius inquired.
“I would want your death.” Domenazreli spun in his chair to regard the commander with a viper stare. “If you cared for Vesar at all, you would not have done this. Tolianksalya was as a father to me, Grilcmzáe. I share his hatred of you, even more so now.”
“But he didn’t hate Vesarius,” Dorinda countered, as if suddenly finding her voice in the midst of snarling lions. “Vesarius, the parchment. We never got to read it.”
“What is this?” Domenazreli rose from his chair. “Another bit of evidence?”
“Yes,” Dorinda confirmed rising from her husband’s side to face the approaching Vesar. “The ambassador gave it to me the night before he was killed. Vesarius was going to read it at the wedding reception. It was on the table.”
“Left behind, also,” Domenazreli surmised. “Again unfortunate.”
“We have to go back,” Dorinda pleaded. “Don’t you see? There’s no honor in intentionally leaving evidence behind. Justice can’t exist without it.” Again Dorinda reached for the Vesar recorder’s free arm. “Honesty, Domenazreli. You’re avoiding it.”
“So?” he countered jerking his appendage away. “Revenge is my right.” He poked a forefinger at Dorinda’s chest. “That is Vesar justice.”
From the floor, Vesarius watched his wife throw back her shoulders. “Then you’re a coward, Sir. You hide behind convenience instead of searching for the entire truth.”
“Big words, Khumahn,” Domenazreli boomed, leaning over her. “You are powerless to stop me.”
“I’ll keep trying.” Dorinda visibly shrank from his shadow. “You won’t break my will.”
“I could crush the life from you, Khumahn. With one hand.” The Vesar raised his singular fist in her retreating face.
“You will not touch her,” Vesarius declared when the diplomat tilted back toward his chair. “I have sworn to protect her.”
“You are powerless as well, Grilcmzáe,” Domenazreli reminded with a flip of his fist and a searing stare.
Vesarius growled and tugged at the bindings restraining his arms. “I will not be bound forever.”
“Ah, but you will be dead soon after.” Domenazreli’s words were icy in their final
ity. He once again whirled away from the pair.
Dorinda sank beside her husband. Her sky silken arms encircled his neck. “I’m afraid, Sarius,” she admitted into his left ear.
Fighting back the encroaching blackness from his shattered clavicle and fractured scapulae, Vesarius grimaced at the painful pressure. He tilted his ebony crown against hers. “I will protect you, Green Eyes,” he consoled. “To my last breath and heartbeat.”
Into his hair she moaned, “I know.” Dorinda’s acknowledgement was anything but reassuring.
Constricted in his bindings, Vesarius had to act. Mentally he hailed his Kin. When the malamute answered, Vesarius imaged to Tundra the parchment and Orthop command chip. Coty must retrieve them both and order the Pompeii to Vesar.
The Vesar Council had to accept reason, understand the consequences. The council could not condemn Dorinda on his account. She must live, even if Vesarius did not. Following his desires with clear mental images, Vesarius was certain Tundra understood the instructions. The Alaskan malamute would communicate with Aztec, who could easily explain the Vesar’s plan to his captain.
The image of a smiling Coty answered his plea. The Pompeii was already in pursuit. Vesarius advised Tundra to hurry. Domenazreli had instated the Vesar code of revenge. Justice was on his side.
Vesarius required an advocate to voice his case. Coty must be allowed to speak for him. The Orthop high chancellor, too, could defend him, Vesarius realized a second later. He instructed Tundra to have Coty retrieve the Orthop from his home planet. Only the insectoid dignitary could convincingly prove the command chip’s threat.
Inwardly, Vesarius prayed for enough time. Dorinda must be protected, for Vesar justice was as swift as it was deadly. With shoulder aching and frustration draining his remaining energies, Vesarius’ head slumped forward. Restlessly he dozed.
“Leave me alone!” Dorinda huffed sometime later. Vesarius’ head snapped up, his exhaustion and pain forgotten. “Sarius!”
“Do not touch her!” he snarled as one of Domenazreli’s guards hauled his wife away.
“Get up, Grilcmzáe!” the other commanded. “We are boarding a warbird for Vesar.”
“A battleship?” Vesarius bent his boots up under him and strained to stand. “Why an armed escort?”
“To protect me,” Domenazreli announced by the transport’s open hatchway. They had docked inside the cramped, musty hold of a Vesar warbird. “Your Capt. Coty follows us. No doubt against Alliance orders. He will not be allowed to interfere in Vesar matters, Grilcmzáe.”
“Then before these witnesses,” Vesarius announced straightening his right shoulder past its endurance, “I declare drokt´ow.”
Domenazreli’s chin snapped to his chest, singular eye clenched. “Drokt´ow?”
“Yes. I have the right to counsel, as any Vesar.”
“You are Grilcmzáe,” the older Vesar reminded with some self-assuredness in his stiff spine. “You have no rights.”
“I may be, but my blood is still full of Fury. I am Vesar. You cannot deny me counsel.”
“I can,” Domenazreli countered hotly. “My men -”
“Would not betray their families,” Vesarius cut in. “Nor risk their honor by lying. Before them I have declared drokt´ow. And I choose Michael Bear Coty as my counsel, and the high chancellor of Orthop as my judge.”
“Orthop!” Domenazreli stammered. “This is absolute zilmon. You cannot manipulate Vesar tradition to suit you, Grilcmzáe. It is what got you dishonored in the first place.”
“Yet I know of drokt´ow,” Vesarius argued standing firm in the transport aisle. “I am aware of tradition only too well. Nowhere does it stipulate that either my counsel or judge need be Vesar.”
“No!” Domenazreli growled “I refuse.”
“You cannot refuse him,” a new, deeply lilting voice stated from the transport’s open hatch. It was a Vesar woman. Her skin was dark and sun-worn, her ebony hair loose, save for a braid replete with totem stones, gathered over her left ear. As she pushed herself up into the transport, Vesarius noticed the medallion pinned at her cloaked shoulder. It bore a pictogram he had seen many times lately.
“Tolianksalya!” he gasped.
“Madame Tolianksalya, Commander,” she corrected. Her vibrant cobalt eyes shifted from Vesarius’ wide stare to Domenazreli’s steamy glower. “You will not refuse his request, Darhk. Brune has the right to name his counsel, and his judge. Even if he is Grilcmzáe. He is still Vesar.”
“By blood only, Madame,” Darhk Domenazreli stammered. “He is an outlaw, no longer a citizen.”
“Allow me to remind you, young man,” the matriarch warned. “Your revenge is secondary to my claim. First he is put to trial. Then you may instate the queítarná-tŕos, not before. Is that clear?”
Domenazreli’s spine sagged. He seemed uncomfortable, though he was several centimeters taller than the older woman. “Yes, Madame Tolianksalya.” He grudgingly scuffed a heel backward in defeat.
“Good,” she acknowledged. “Then we will await the Pompeii and escort her to Vesar. Meanwhile,” Jerylin Tolianksalya added regarding the slumping and bound Vesar dressed in formalwear and adorned with a darkened swelling below his left eye. “The commander and his human companion will be taken to the brig.”
“Yes, Madame Tolianksalya.” Domenazreli saluted the matriarch as she turned to leave. His flaming gaze rekindled upon its return to the Pompeii’s first officer. “You are still dead. Both of you.”
“Not yet,” Vesarius rumbled as one of the guards pushed him forward toward the exit. Dorinda followed behind him, subdued for the moment.
When they were safely locked in one of the warbird’s holding cells, Dorinda wasted no time unstrapping him from the restraints. “How’s the shoulder?” Dorinda worked to fashion a sling from the harness to support the injury.
Stiffly, Vesarius flexed his arms to restore their proper circulation. As blood eagerly pumped to his limbs, so did the deeply throbbing ache. “Fractured,” Vesarius grunted. “It will require weeks to knit before I will be fit for combat.”
“Who’re you going to fight?” Dorinda settled onto the hard bunk beside him and wrapped her makeshift sling gently about his shoulder and neck.
Vesarius grimaced at her ministries and answered through gritted teeth, “The ambassador’s recorder, of course. Revenge is Domenazreli’s, but only if he can kill me first.”
“A death fight? You have to kill him to defend yourself?” Her emerald eyes betrayed her aversion to violence.
“Kill or be killed,” Vesarius acknowledged. “The queítarná-tŕos is the code of revenge. This shoulder will be a grave handicap.”
“It’s the same one that was shattered by Sheriff Cooper’s bullet before we returned through the Arch.” Vesarius, too, remembered the incident. The slug had lodged just centimeters from his heart. It had only been months ago. And a newly healed bone, re-injured, took twice as long to mend a second time. “Why did he do it? Domenazreli, I mean,” Dorinda inquired.
“Break my father’s sword?” When she nodded, Vesarius explained, “I had questioned his honor and sensibility by breaking from tradition. He had to regain face by returning the injury to my family, to me.” Vesarius tested the snugness of the sling and grunted in satisfaction. “The sword belonged to my great-great-grandsire, forged of steel from Vesar itself. Weaponry is the only possession handed down through the male bloodline,” he added. “To me, my family, it was priceless. Now,” Vesarius avowed with a weighted exhale, “it is ruined.”
“Could it be re-forged?”
Vesarius raised his solemn eyes to hers. “Yes, I suppose. Though I am unskilled as a blacksmith.”
“You couldn’t get someone to fix it for you?”
Vesarius shook his head. “It is my responsibility. If I fail, the weapon will be slag.”
“I hope you get that opportunity.” Dorinda stroked his bare arm and leaned into him with a sigh. After several moments, she rose f
rom her seat to venture, “Sarius, how rational are Vesar? Will they be able to reason your innocence, or are they just out for blood?”
“I am not innocent,” Vesarius countered from the bunk. “I have told you this before.”
“Vesarius,” Dorinda argued sounding as though she were about to reprimand a child. “You were under mind control.” She splayed her hands. “If you had had a chance, you’d have never allowed the ambassador to be killed. Only because the rebels kept Coty and me alive, were we able to take back the ship. In your own way you fought their control, but it wasn’t enough.”
“I was weak, Dorinda. Do you not see?” Glowering at her naiveté, Vesarius grunted to his feet to pace their cell. “I allowed their deaths. I could have prevented it.”
“How can you say that?” Dorinda challenged from the bull’s-eye of his march. “Even if you had shot Gluctg instead of firing into the air, how could you be certain the other Orthops wouldn’t have killed us all?”
Vesarius spun away from her with a swipe of his good arm. “Supposition. I can only argue facts.”
“Then let me argue supposition.” She came to stand beside him, stalling his pace with a tightened hand. “It’s better than giving up, putting your head in a noose. I thought Vesar avoided defeat. I thought your kind fought to the death.”
Again Vesarius released a taut breath. He threw her a grave glare. “I am restraining myself for your sake.” The warrior straightened his spine then winced as his fractured shoulder twisted with his quick movements. Beneath it, his heavy heart ached as well. Pivoting to hide his discomfort, Vesarius continued his argument. “I do not want to die, Dorinda. But I will gladly join Huaj´im than allow you to die with me.” He paced another course about the cell. “I refuse to give Domenazreli the satisfaction of including you in his revenge. Let me do this, Green Eyes,” he pleaded turning back to his wife. “It is my duty and love to protect you. My life is gladly forfeit.”
Now Dorinda stomped forward and slipped her arms about his ribs. “I’m sorry, Sarius,” she said into his chest. “But wherever you go, so do I. I’ll not lose a second husband to an intolerant, selfish populace.”
