Danger in the Stars: (The Sectors SF Romance Series)

by Veronica Scott

  Pondering the information indicating humans found the Mawreg horrifying, Miriell walked rapidly, tugged by the leash binding her wrists. There was an odd odor in the air, faint, sickly sweet, like decaying flowers. She tried not to breathe too deeply. She and her companions passed no one else on the trip through the ship, arriving at what must be the center in a moment or two. A translucent dome hid whatever sat at the core of the ship. Constantly changing lights roved over the interior of the dome, but no details of the occupant could be seen.

  The Chimmer bowed and made a short speech in his own language.

  There was a discordant chiming sound, and the dome split neatly in two, the halves sliding into recessed grooves in the bulkhead.

  A quiver ran through Gyxxtahm, making the taut leash vibrate.

  Miriell swallowed hard and forced herself to endure her first glimpse of a Mawreg.

  She could understand why humans might find this creature hard to look at. It was like a hybrid of several beings, or perhaps a group of parasites emerging from a single host. The body appeared to be turned inside out in places, with unpleasantly pulsing, dripping organs and vessels slathered with slimy goo and leaking pustules emitting a foul odor. In another segment of the entity’s structure–the head perhaps?—there were what might have been numerous, giant, faceted eyes, but the components or lenses moved and twirled and morphed so fast Miriell found the effect dizzying and nauseating. She couldn’t get her eyes to focus on the Mawreg’s hindquarters at all. Her vision blurred with each attempt to glance at that part of the alien.

  But what fascinated Miriell and drew her away from any thought of the Mawreg’s disconcerting and disgusting physical form were the colors of its being. Unbidden, her power sprang to life and showed her plates of colors in the Mawreg’s aura, sliding across each other to form new hues. Indeed, some of the colors were nothing she had ever seen before, could not begin to name and had no idea what their presence portended. The display, visible only to her, exerted a pull on her senses, and she took a step forward before she’d even realized she was moving. Fortunately, Gyxxtahm yanked on the leash, breaking Miriell’s focus ever so slightly. She sank to her knees and let the astonishing colors wash over her. With growing excitement, she realized she could affect this being, exert her influence, even with the aspects she’d never seen before and didn’t understand. This must be what Thuun was saving me for, gave me the power for. But am I to kill it now? Miriell bit her lip. Surely this wasn’t the right moment. The SCIA hadn’t arrived yet. Events were still in flux.

  She whispered a little prayer to Thuun, seeking guidance. There was no response, as had been the sad case so often since she was stolen from her planet, but this time Miriell took the silence as an answer. I must wait. Thuun will send me a sign.

  Pressure on her wrists as the leash was tugged snapped her out of the contemplative state, and she staggered to her feet to follow Gyxxtahm and the others from the Mawreg ship as the dome closed behind her. Miriell wondered if the Mawreg had been aware of her scrutiny of its innermost secrets. Most sentients lacked the capacity to detect her gift in action, unless she chose to use it in such a way as to be obvious. Conor with his mysterious Mellurean implants was an exception. She glanced over her shoulder and shivered as she realized all the glowing lights inside the dome were clustered in one spot now, as if watching her.

  “Well, your pet took no harm,” said the Chimmer. “Not quite human, then.”

  “Although she appeared strangely entranced,” Gyxxtahm answered as she clambered into the groundcar. “Or overawed.”

  “I’m sure the master was pleased,” the Chimmer answered. “He’ll have regarded her behavior as proper respect due to his superior status. The Mawreg rule above all others. The sooner the humans are forced to accept the inevitable order of the universe, the better. Many plans for expansion are on hold while we struggle with these stubborn sentients. Other matters go undealt with.”

  “You say too much,” the Chimmer in the front seat hissed.

  “The pet doesn’t speak the Shemdylann language.”

  Miriell did her best to appear uncomprehending as Gyxxtahm and the garrulous Chimmer in the passenger compartment regarded her with sharpened interest. She combed her fingers through her hair as if grooming or nervous and kept her eyes on the floor.

  “Discussing the masters in any way is a bad habit to acquire.”

  There was no more conversation as they drove to the conference complex. When she walked into the main meeting room behind Gyxxtahm, Miriell instinctively looked for Conor in his usual seat behind Opherra, but the chair was empty. A shiver of fear ran cold through her veins, and she glanced at the crime boss. The fact that Opherra nodded to her with a pleased, predator’s cast to her face did nothing to assuage the anxiety. Sinking onto her hassock, Miriell sent a tendril of her power spiraling through the building, seeking her lover. She found him not too far away, but something was definitely wrong. Stress and worry, threaded around a degree of physical pain colored his aura. What could have happened to him? Pulling back into herself, Miriell began to hum a song under her breath. I’m going to need this today. The deadly energy she’d deploy had to build to be wielded with maximum lethality, and she believed there’d be little or no warning before the SCIA attacked. Best to build to the threshold of the final crescendo and hold herself on the edge. Shaking, she had to tamp down her excitement over making the decision to finally use the power she controlled.

  “Now that we’re all assembled,” Opherra said, rising and walking to the center of the stage, “I invite our honored guests to view the way we in the Combine deal with treachery and betrayal—swiftly and without mercy. Bring in the prisoner.”

  Two heavily armed guards marched Conor into the room. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and his face was bruised and cut.

  Fighting off fear for him, Miriell continued her chant, trying to be quiet about it even as she stared at Conor. Did Opherra somehow find out he’s a police officer?

  He lifted his head and searched for her, his gaze intense. He gave her a tiny nod.

  Opherra stepped beside him. “Yes, though it pains me to admit the fact, the traitor has been in my own organization, and only last night did I have enough evidence to confront him.”

  “What are you accusing this man of?” asked the most senior council member. “I thought he was your trusted second.”

  “He was.” Opherra managed to inject tragic sorrow into her voice. “He deceived me for far too long.”

  Miriell felt the power accumulating at her command and rose from the hassock. All eyes were on Opherra. No one noticed as the priestess planted her feet in a wide stance and raised her tethered hands in front of her, cupped palms upward.

  Straightening her spine and staring across the massed audience of Combine members, Opherra said, “Conor Stewart is—”

  “Enough!” Miriell shouted the word in her own language, the syllables imbued with power and reverberating through the room. Before the echoes faded, she unleashed the song that carried the strength of all that made her a priestess of Thuun. Sound poured from her throat, music so terrible it was a weapon of last resort for her people. It struck Conor’s two guards first, who screamed and fell, transforming from living men to rotting bones between one breath and the next. She remembered the day the Shemdylann invaded and how shocked her people had been to find that their ultimate weapon was powerless to affect the attackers in the least. She pushed away the memory, stiffening her resolve. The power would work on all other sentients in her vicinity.

  Opherra cringed, stepping backward, but the power of the song took on visible form, green motes surrounding the woman like a swarm of angry insects. Opherra began to age, the song ushering her through all the seasons of life in seconds. Her long hair whitened, her limbs became gnarled and her back developed a hump. Wrinkles covered her face like batter poured from a pitcher, and her once striking eyes filmed over with a rheumy white membrane, blinding her as she rushed thr
ough old age toward death. Her teeth fell out, making tiny clicking sounds as each hit the floor. Opherra sank to her knees, reaching toward Conor with clawed hands, whether for help or in one last try for revenge, no one would ever know. She fell sideways, flesh melting away from bones that in the next moment drifted away as white powder.

  Under Miriell’s spell, the horrified audience in the chamber was held in thrall. Only Conor, who she’d taken pains to protect, and the Shemdylann with their natural immunity, retained the ability to move. Cursing in Shemdylann, Gyxxtahm used the leash to drag Miriell off her feet, the song abruptly interrupted as she fell. Conor broke free of the restraints binding his wrists, snatched a blaster from one of the dead guards and leaped toward the Shemdylann table as the other occupants of the room began to slowly regain use of their limbs. Gyxxtahm reared on her powerful back legs, preparing to deliver a killing blow with her front mandible. Miriell scrabbled to put distance between them. Conor slid to a stop next to Miriell and fired upward, hitting one of the few vulnerable spots on a Shemdylann’s armored body, the soft indentation at the base of the neck. With an ear-splitting screech, Gyxxtahm fell with a resounding crash, claws and legs twitching as she perished. Her immense carcass momentarily shielded them from the Combine members on the other side of the stage and the alien delegation.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” Conor unfastened the shackles on Miriell’s wrists and snatched up the blaster again. “Stay close.”

  The floor shook underneath her, and she heard a cracking sound far above. Dazed, she glanced upward in time to see the entire multicolored skylight shatter and plunge toward the stage in jagged shards.

  “Now the SCIA arrives?” Conor said, even as he was shoving her into the lee of the dead alien’s massive, still convulsing corpse. He covered her with his own body while the glasslike substance crashed all around them. After the sounds stopped, he tugged her arm. “Time to move.” He made a rapid assessment of what remained of the ceiling and brought her to her feet.

  Dazed, Miriell stared around her as the floor under her feet shifted again, almost as if there’d been an earthquake. The cacophony of blasters firing, explosions and loud shouting made her cringe. Smoke was filling the air, her chest tightening as she coughed. “Aren’t these your people?”

  Placing himself to shield her from the pitched battle now raging between the invading troops and the Combine, he hustled her past the deserted table and down the three stairs leading to the back hallways. “Yes, but right now they don’t know who’s a bad guy and who isn’t. I can’t risk you getting shot by some trigger-happy rookie out to make a name for himself. We need to find a safe place to hole up until we can surrender and I can identify myself to the proper authorities.”

  They emerged into the private hallway, which was deserted. Conor spun her around and pulled her into his arms for a quick kiss, after which he laid his cheek next to hers and whispered, “I love you, lady. Thank you for saving my life back there.”

  Leaning against him, clutching his shirt, she said, “When I saw your empty chair, I knew something was wrong. How did she find out you’re a cop?”

  “She didn’t.” He gave her a hug, holding her as if he never wanted to let her go.

  “What else would make her angry enough to want to execute you?”

  Miriell thought he blushed a bit under the tan. Understanding dawning, she said, “You fought over me, didn’t you?”

  “So to speak. Listen, we can talk later, I promise, but right now we’ve got to find shelter. I know where there’s an out-of-the-way alcove where we can bide our time and sit out the combat.” Taking her hand, blaster at the ready in the other, he drew her to the left.

  They’d gone only a few feet when the remaining two Shemdylann loomed out of the smoke like monsters in a nightmare. Conor put Miriell behind him. “What do you want here?” he asked in their language. “You should be fleeing for your lives.”

  The one in the lead pointed a mandible at Miriell. “The master wants her. Give us the female and you can live, human.”

  “Not a chance in the seven hells.” He fired, hitting a vulnerable spot and taking down the alien who’d spoken, but the second bounded over his comrade, knocking Conor out of the way like a child’s toy, and grabbed Miriell. Holding her close to his bony chest with two of the small grappling arms, the alien continued down the corridor, disregarding her screams. Miriell beat her fists uselessly on her captor’s carapace.

  She knew Conor would follow and try to rescue her. Coughing more deeply as the Shemdylann sprinted through the hallways, she sought to center herself, to be calm. If this alien was taking her to the Mawreg ship, then Thuun had one more task for her, and she’d need all her power to accomplish it.

  When Miriell emerged into the sunlight, she realized with fierce joy that both the Chimmer ship and the Shemdylann vessel were burning hulks, raging fire sending plumes of ugly smoke to stain the bronze sky. Two large spaceships that she assumed were from the Sectors hovered above, and small dots came and went from each. Fighters, probably. Or shuttles full of police and soldiers. From the explosions and shouts, the hand-to-hand battle was raging primarily on the other side of the building complex.

  The large groundcar was waiting, motor running. One Chimmer stood beside it, and the other was behind the controls. “We know you can kill us, alien,” it said to her in Basic. “But you have no power over the Shemdylann soldier here. He’ll carry out the mission to deliver you to the master, so there’s no use in wasting your time on us. Understood?”

  Secure in her belief that Thuun intended for her to confront the Mawreg again, she nodded. These beings were merely the tools to place her where the god wanted her to be. The aliens obviously had no idea her power could and would affect the sentient who ruled their lives. Apparently, they believed the Mawreg immune to any threat.

  “Put her in the vehicle.” As soon as the group was inside, the Chimmer driver took off at a high rate of speed, heading straight for where the Mawreg vessel lay camouflaged.

  “There’s one human following us,” said the driver shortly.

  Conor. Miriell twisted in the seat, attempting to peer out the rear windows, but the usually clear material had been blacked out. Be careful, my love. Of course he’d pursue them—he was a warrior through and through. And Thuun wanted them to stand side by side at the end to kill the monster.

  “I’ll take care of this.” The Chimmer next to her drew his weapon and popped open a port on the side of the vehicle. Taking aim, he fired, the sound deafening in the closed compartment.

  “He’s gaining,” the driver reported, glancing at his readouts. “Whatever he’s riding is faster than this vehicle. Some kind of one-man skimmer.”

  “Fire the rear cannon, spread the blast wide. Even if we don’t kill him, we can force him to divert. At that speed, he’ll crash.”

  The car bucked and vibrated as the massive blaster belched fire.

  Hand at her throat, Miriell felt tears pooling. How could anyone survive such a thing?

  The Chimmer stationed himself at the gunport once more, probably trying to figure out if Conor had been disposed of.

  The alien’s head exploded, hit by a pinpoint blaster charge, and Miriell screamed and scrabbled back on the seat.

  The driver skewed the car violently to the left and accelerated. Thrown side to side in the passenger compartment by the drastic evasive maneuvers, Miriell clung to whatever she could to avoid contact with the dead Chimmer, or the coppery blood oozing from the partially cauterized wound. She shut her eyes and prayed the ride would be over soon. In another few moments, the car came to a skidding halt, and the Shemdylann reached inside to grab her while the Chimmer driver covered them, clutching his hand weapon, hunkered behind the car.

  “Get her to the master,” the Chimmer shouted.

  Miriell was carried inside the spaceship as the ground vehicle exploded behind her. The Shemdylann made a strange sound and toppled over as if in slow motion, releasin
g her with his dying paroxysm. Apparently, the creature had been shot, or shrapnel from the exploding car had struck him in a vulnerable location. Miriell got to her feet, rubbing her sore elbow, and glanced back the way she’d come, tempted to seek out Conor and make sure he was all right. But as if Thuun spoke in her head, she knew her path lay ahead, so she forced herself not to retreat. Taking a deep breath, she ran toward the center of the ship where the Mawreg waited.

  Mustn’t let him take off. She reached forward with her power, curling tendrils around the Mawreg’s endlessly sliding plates of color, shuffling them, stopping some of them, flipping others and watching them change into new colors. She knew she’d reached the alien’s compartment, the unmistakable smell penetrating her fascination with the psychic display she was seeing in her mind’s eye. She realized she and the Mawreg were playing a deadly game, with the enemy knowing full well she was trying to kill it and fighting back as best it could. There was no reality surrounding her, only an endless sea of colors washing into each other. With a jolt of adrenaline, Miriell understood the Mawreg was reaching into her own soul, leaching off some of her strength. She watched an alarming flow of deep purple bubble away from her, rippling across the deck.

  Blaster fire and a shout from Conor broke her concentration for a critical moment. The enemy was triumphant, many of the colors going red and gold and other shades she had no name for. She heard the engines growing louder, and the deck under her feet vibrated. I must shut out the distractions. Conor will protect me.

  Giving voice to a hymn of victory in the face of adversity, she pushed away all other thought beyond hitting the perfect notes and forcing the Mawreg’s colors back to gray and beige in as many segments as she could. While locked in the effort, she sent a tendril of her power questing for Conor, found him at her side and tapped into the cobalt blue at the core of his being.

  “Please, I need—” she said out loud, not even knowing if he could understand what she was asking.