Nevvis laughed. “Is Taymar okay?”
Watching Nevvis’s face closely, Sean answered, “I’d say no worse for wear than expected, seeing as how she didn’t exactly turn herself in. She’s a bit manky. And it’s fair to say she was a bit beat up in the process and given a nip of an overdose of a drug, but I’m t’inking she’s pushing through it.”
To his surprise, Nevvis’s brows crumpled into angry concern before flashing back to the calm curiosity that Sean knew already was the man’s diplomat face. But had Nevvis’s concern been for his property, or for Taymar herself? Sean couldn’t tell.
“What do you mean by ‘beat up?’” Nevvis asked, trying to sound detached despite the tightening of his voice.
For whatever reason, Sean was glad to see the Dran’s stress. “Well, she was chased through the trees and bushes for a stretch. And then she had to be shot three times before finally she saw fit to go down. But if it makes you feel any better, she took two of my people with her. And if that weren’t enough, she is set to have my medical officer for lunch. Keeps calling him a keel. Whatever that is, I’m t’inking it isn’t a compliment.”
“No. Definitely not,” Nevvis said, with a small smile.
“But that’s not the worst of it,” Sean continued, deciding from Nevvis’s reaction to get right to the main concern. “She’s done something to my ship’s telepath. Without touching her. Just looked at her, and now Ranealla is in a coma of sorts. I’m hoping you can sort it.”
Nevvis’s smile vanished. “Done what?”
Sean sat forward and looked directly into Nevvis’s concerned, golden gaze. “Well now, I don’t know, do I? Like I said, Taymar looked at Ranealla, and the next thing we know Ranealla is unconscious and has been that way since. Her brain waves were having a right fit up until a few hours ago. Now it seems she’s giving up.”
Nevvis pulled out a chair and sat. “She may be doing just that. Giving up.”
“So you’ve seen this before? You’ll be knowing how to fix it, then?”
“Yes and no.” Nevvis’s expression didn’t inspire hope as he stared unseeing at the wall hanging above Sean’s head. “She’s done it before, to Targer, in fact, but we don’t exactly know how she does it. To be honest, we don’t know the least of what Taymar is capable of doing. This complicates matters considerably.”
“Well, Targer lived, now didn’t he?” Sean added, trying to keep his low opinion of the Dran leader out of his thoughts.
With little conviction, Nevvis nodded.
“Can’t say I’m overwhelmed with your confidence just now,” Sean said.
Nevvis shook his head, as if to clear it. “It’s as if she traps telepaths with their own thoughts. Then, somehow, she keeps them there, even from a distance.”
Sean scowled. “But, I thought she couldn’t use telepathy across a dinisolate field.”
Surprised, Nevvis turned back to Sean, brow raised. “Like I said, we don’t know half of what Taymar can do. Please tell me how she is contained.”
“I’ll take you to her,” Sean said, moving to stand.
“No. Not yet. I need to know right where she is and what your containment setup is. I can feel the dinisolate field, but I need the physical layout as well.”
“Why?” Perhaps naïvely, Sean thought Nevvis would just walk in and Taymar would walk out. Ridiculous, in retrospect.
Nevvis’s expression smoothed to practiced politeness. “Because it will be easier to reestablish a psychic connection if I catch her by surprise.”
“I’m t’inking there’s a bit more to it than that,” Sean said with a smile.
As Nevvis’s look of neutral congeniality melted into a weary half-smile, Sean thought he might be seeing the real Dran for the first time. “I have no doubt in my mind that she will try to kill me. Now, to look at her, you may scoff at my hesitation. But believe me, Captain McCauffer, she is lethal.” He climbed to his feet again and bent his legs to stretch them. “She’s done some things recently that she shouldn’t be able to do, and I have no way of knowing what she has learned since she’s been off-planet. I’m not looking forward to this.”
“I don’t scoff, that’s for bloody sure.” Sean stood, tapped some keys on his viewer, and tossed the resulting image up onto the wall. Taymar’s cell appeared before them as seen from above. Sean gripped the air on either side of the live video, twisted it, and zoomed it in until they were looking directly in the shielded opening at a sleeping Arlele buried beneath a pile of blankets. “Well, there’s your bit of luck for the day. It seems the lass is sleeping. We can flood the chamber with a tranquilizer, if that will help you.”
“It’s not that simple,” Nevvis explained, reaching out and adjusting the video to pan the room. “I do have psychic methods of controlling her, but she could be resistant at this point. I have no way of knowing. And if she is, it’s better to be in there when I find out than out here.” He zoomed in on her again. She still sat with her back against the wall, but her head rested against her knees and the blankets moved up and down in an even rhythm. “Besides, I don’t know what she’s doing to Ranealla or how, so tagging her isn’t my first choice.”
Sean didn’t understand half of what the man was saying, but decided not to dwell on it. Maybe ignorance really was bliss when it came to telepaths. “Well, what can I do to help?”
Nevvis pulled the image back to the room view and outlined the cell. “I assume this is covered by a dinisolate field?”
“Yes. And another surrounds that section of the deck.”
“Not taking any chances, are you?” Nevvis said, smiling.
“I’ve seen enough to know better than to take chances with that one. That’s actually why we had to drug her to begin with. She ripped apart the medbay without moving so much as a muscle.”
Nevvis’s lack of reaction spoke volumes. “Okay,” he said, tipping the image back to the overhead view and pointing at the door. “You and I will go in together through this back entry behind her cell. You stay to the side, and when I give the signal, turn off the inner containment field. She will know you’re there, but I think she’ll be more focused on me than you. I don’t know how long it will take me to connect with her. It could be a matter of seconds. It should be a matter of seconds.”
“But you’re not t’inking it’ll be mere seconds, are you?”
Nevvis turned to Sean. “No. And that worries me. Like I said, she’s been exhibiting very atypical Arlele behaviors. I don’t think it will come to this, but in the event Taymar takes me, tranq her, okay? Do not let her loose in this ship.”
Sean nodded. He’d read better strategy in a comic book, but then he had never dealt with someone capable of moving objects with her mind. This whole thing stood a good chance of going arseways, but he opted not to criticize. Apparently, his brain didn’t have the same opinion. Nevvis’s smile announced that Sean had been broadcasting his thoughts.
“She can do more than move objects. She can reshape them. Change their form. An out-of-control Arlele of any ability level is a walking weapon, but one with Taymar’s talent could quite literally kill us all. The trick is making sure she doesn’t know that, or at the very least doesn’t know how.” Nevvis ran his hand across the image, crumpling it into a virtual ball of lights and colors before tossing it back to the main viewer. “And the problem is that I have no way of knowing how much she has figured out. But on the positive side, she has no weapons, correct?”
“None.” Sean tapped off his viewer and moved toward the door, but stopped before swiping it open. “How do you get her to release Ranealla? I mean, it’s not in her best interest to do that, now is it? Seems to me she’d be smarter to hold that card as long as she can.”
“Tay’s not a malicious person.”
“She’s going to try to kill you. You just said as much. I’m not sure what your definition of malicious would be, but I can’t say I’d be snuggling up to her about now.”
“Normally, I wouldn’t even consider the p
ossibility that Tay would hurt your telepath. Normally, she wouldn’t. This isn’t normal, though. Right now, she’s trapped and she’s going to do anything she can to break out of that trap. And if that means killing someone, she’s capable of doing it. She’s done it before.”
Sean watched the calm resolve play across Nevvis’s face before finally swiping the door. “Well, then. Let’s get after it while the lass is still knackered, shall we?”
Nevvis moved forward to follow, but then stepped back inside. Sean frowned and let the door slide closed again.
“I nearly forgot, Captain. You should be receiving a call to rescue a damaged research vessel. With luck, there will be people on that ship with information about the time flux, and maybe even plans to the Shreet station.”
“The orders Ranealla delivered said you had managed that miracle, but didn’t give details. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you come by the intel?”
Nevvis leaned over to swipe the door. “It’s amazing what people will do for fuel.”
Sean didn’t comment aloud, but he didn’t hide his thoughts, either. Smug bastard.
###
When the two men stepped onto the brig, they found Taymar still curled into a ball beneath the pile of blankets. She looked anything but menacing tucked up against the wall the way she was, but Sean had seen the damage she’d done firsthand. As requested, he stayed by the panel, percussion stunner in hand, while the Dran slipped into position in front of the cell. Despite Nevvis’s relaxed open stance, the man’s deliberate breaths and perfect stillness betrayed his tension. If Taymar was gunning for a fight, he was bloody well going to give her one.
At Nevvis’s nod, Sean keyed in the command to drop the field and tapped his stunner on as he waited. Nothing happened. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but the lack of anything wasn’t it. After an eternity that was maybe half a minute long, Taymar looked up and began unfolding like a cat coming up out of the reeds. If she knew Nevvis wasn’t alone, she didn’t seem to care. She never even glanced in Sean’s direction. Only Nevvis existed, and he commanded her full attention.
They stood, regarding each other with unwavering stares, and the longer Sean watched the more he realized that this particular war had been fought before, though perhaps not with such dire consequences. It was being launched on the battlefield of the mind.
Moving with animal-like grace, Taymar allowed the last of the blankets to slip from her shoulders and headed toward Nevvis, all signs of her earlier stiffness abandoned. Her jaw clenched and she hunched her shoulders as she struggled with some invisible pain, but she didn’t pause. Pressing forward in slow, steady strides, her gray eyes stayed trained on the target.
The Dran didn’t move, and as Sean glanced from one to the other he wondered, not for the first time, who in the room really deserved to be shot should the need arise. With deliberate steps, Taymar crossed the open threshold of the holding cell, and without any warning that Sean could see, she lunged at the waiting Dran.
As if by magic, a razor-edged glass blade appeared in her right hand. She gripped the gloppy base like a knife and brought it toward Nevvis’s neck in a wicked slashing motion. Nevvis dropped down and sideways, avoiding the lethal blow, but it wasn’t a full miss. The makeshift knife sliced across his shoulder, splitting it in a spattering of blood.
Nevvis yelled in pain and rolled away, leaving a red smear. But before he could get to his feet, she was on him again. With vicious speed, she dove for his vulnerable midsection, her weapon leading the way. Nevvis was ready. He crouched down, removing her target and placing him beneath her as she dove. Without hesitation, he planted both feet in her stomach and kicked. Taymar flew through the air like a puppet, slammed into the wall, and slumped to the floor. But she didn’t stay there.
In an instant, both were back on their feet, circling one another in wary silence. Again, Taymar attacked first, aiming a powerful kick at Nevvis’s knee. Had it connected, it would have been crippling. But it didn’t. Nevvis spun away from the oncoming assault and deflected it with his forearm, carrying the attacking foot with him as he turned. A sweep kick of her supporting leg sent Taymar crashing to the floor.
Taymar managed to switch the blade to her left hand as she went down. She rolled through the fall and found her feet already positioning for another strike. But her fall was the break Nevvis needed to gain the advantage, and from the look on Taymar’s face, Sean wasn’t the only one who had figured that out.
Again, Taymar lunged, feigning a strike with her now empty right hand. A sweep of the blade in her left hand followed, but before the blade connected, she stumbled. Sean glanced from Nevvis to Taymar, thinking he must have missed something. Why had Taymar tripped? Nevvis batted away the clumsy attack with the heel of his hand. Other than that, he didn’t move.
Deep lines of concentration marred Taymar’s expression, and her feline grace steadily turned to stiff, rigid jerks as she continued toward Nevvis. Where she gripped the shank in her palm, blood trickled from her fist. But as Sean glanced from Nevvis to Taymar and back, he knew that the Arlele wasn’t even aware of her self-inflicted injuries. Something much more serious had her full attention.
Nevvis’s face told a similar story of concentration as he steadily but slowly backed away from his plodding adversary. Each of Taymar’s steps came slower than the one before. With more effort. And Nevvis stayed just out of reach of the shard while he waited for her labored efforts to finally cease. The battle now raged in an arena that Sean couldn’t see. And Taymar was losing.
In a last, desperate move, Taymar hurled herself forward. Her effort lacked control or grace. She didn’t make it more than two steps before she doubled over in a scream of agony. Nevvis didn’t move except to watch her with intense interest as she struggled to take another step, and with it another swipe.
“Drop the glass, Taymar,” Nevvis demanded in an eerily quiet voice. When she didn’t respond, he leaned forward and peered at her with that same golden stare he had given Sean just before leaving the office. “Tay. Drop the weapon and rakki, now.”
From a place of torment Sean couldn’t identify, Taymar managed another shaky step forward. Her muscles trembled and her breathing came in quick, shallow rasps. She stared up at the Drani and spat. In a final valiant effort, she swiped the makeshift blade in slow motion at what could have been his neck, had Nevvis not moved. Her movements lacked any threat. With ease, Nevvis caught her by the wrist, and in one fluid motion sent her to the floor with a thud. This time, Nevvis followed her down. Blood still streaming down his arm, he jerked Taymar onto her back and pinned her arms above her head, staring into her icy gray eyes. Taymar didn’t fight. She just opened her bloody hand and let the glass fall to the floor.
After waiting long enough to ensure the fight was over, Sean stepped closer to the exhausted pair. Both were panting and wet with sweat. Blood from Nevvis’s wound was already pooling on the floor, leaving red streaks where it mixed with Taymar’s tangle of chocolate-brown hair.
Their clothes were as much a mess as they were, but their faces told a different story. Taymar no longer wore the look of fierce willpower that had been on her face when she’d emerged from her cell. Now, as she lay pinned firmly to the floor, she seemed almost subdued. On the other hand, Nevvis smiled as if nothing had happened.
“Hello, Tay,” he said as if he were addressing an old friend. “How are things?”
A fleeting ripple of contempt played across Taymar’s face before she closed her eyes and twisted her head to the side.
Keeping her wrists secured in one of his fists, Nevvis reached across and picked up the triangle of glass off the floor. That it had originally come from a water glass was barely evident. Taymar had teked it into a deadly sharp blade. “So much for not being armed,” he said, handing the shard up to Sean. “You know, there are other materials you can use to hold liquid. Something a little less lethal, perhaps.”
Sean turned the blood-streaked shank in his hand as he strode
into Taymar’s open cell. The light glinted off an edge sharper than any machine-cut blade he’d ever seen. He could have used the bloody thing to shave.
“Glass is not easily turned into an explosive,” he replied as he rubbed his shoe through a puddle of water that the saturated blanket was no longer willing to absorb. “She’s been making a new weapon every twenty minutes. Been using the converter like some kind of personal alarm. And I’ve not been the tiniest bit suspicious.” Sean turned back to Nevvis, who now stood with Taymar, still well secured in front of him. “Making me look a fecking gimp,” Sean said, pointing the blade at Taymar as he spoke.
As if yanked by an invisible hand, the blade slid out of Sean’s fist and shot through the air straight for Nevvis and Taymar. Sean yanked his hand back as pain shot up his arm. Taymar beat him to the yelp, though. With a shove from Nevvis, both she and the glass hit the ground simultaneously, Taymar’s stifled grunt not quite covering up the tinkle of shattering glass. Shocked, Sean gaped down at the thin lines of blood beginning to seep from the parallel slices on his palm, then to Nevvis, who once again had Taymar pinned to the floor.
Blood streamed from the gaping wound down his arm and trickled along the armband that covered most of Taymar’s right forearm. “Captain,” he said, frowning at his arm as if noticing it for the first time, “I need to get to the medical compound right away.” Then, after glancing at Taymar’s sliced hand, he added, “Actually, we both do.”
Nevvis’s comment snapped Sean out of his immobility, and he hurried over to the converter in the cell. An instant later, he was gathering up pressure wraps and sterispray from the converter tray. When he turned to rejoin his passengers, Nevvis, once again, had Taymar on her feet, but this time he had her arms crossed in front of her and her back pressed firmly against his chest. He twisted slightly to offer Sean better access to his seeping wound, and Taymar gave a little jerk, but not much of one. She couldn’t. Based on Nevvis’s grip, Sean was surprised she was able to breathe.
Shield of Drani (World of Drani Book 1) Page 16
