She took a deep breath. Who knew how long this dream was going to last? Focus. Get him to focus. “For the second time, where are you kept at night?”
“In the tent. They set a guard. One man as far as I know. But I’ve heard them talking about how the grounds are guarded by private security hired by the fair organizers. Kinterow may have more of his own staff patrolling outside. I’ve no way to learn the truth.” He frowned. “Our routine’s changed this week. We’re not going on to the next scheduled stop after all. Kinterow acts like a man recalled by whoever holds his leash.”
“All the more reason to get you out now. I’ll lay my plans during the day and see you tomorrow night, in real life.” She took his hand. “You have to promise me you’ll follow my orders. No hesitations, no stopping to free anyone or anything else.”
Unexpectedly, he folded her into his arms for a hug, leaning his head against hers. “If you’re willing to risk yourself on my behalf again, of course I’ll do as you say.”
Larissa nodded. “All right then.”
“Be careful, my warrior.” He kissed her forehead as he released her from his embrace.
She awoke in the morning full of purpose and resolve. As soon as she could get the clearance, she lifted off from the spaceport and established a parking orbit behind a moon on the fringe of the solar system. From there, she studied the fairgrounds in great detail and had the AI search the public records for plans and specifications, or any other useful information. She picked her gear for the night raid carefully and ran through her plan multiple times, strategizing what she’d do if various contingencies arose.
Larissa knew she’d underestimated what she was up against the first time, although having been captured so easily still burned. She wasn’t giving Kinterow a second chance at her. And she wasn’t leaving without Samell.
The fair stayed open late but closed down around one in the morning. She cloaked her ship, activating highly illicit tech she’d acquired a few years ago, and landed as close to the fairgrounds as she dared. Mounted on her high performance, military grade air and ground speedster bike, she made her way to just short of the huge exhibition space, then infiltrated on foot, wearing her own personal disruptor shield. She easily evaded the few bored security guards patrolling, making note of where their routes took them, and arrived at the seer’s tent. One man stood guard outside and, according to Samell there’d be another inside,
Taking no chances, she used her stunner on the exterior guard and pitched a stun grenade into the tent, running inside as the effect was reverberating. Luckily, the grenades were designed as stealth weapons, to take down guards at facilities in precisely this manner. Her first priority was to drag the exterior guard into the tent.
“Seven hells, a Capadochan.” They were much less vulnerable to stun charges, and revived sooner. She shot him again at close range to be sure.
She verified the other man was deeply unconscious and hastily stripped both of all weapons, adding one or two to her own belt and sealing the rest in a bag she’d brought for the purpose, before running to the stasis bubble where Samell sat, eyes now open and watchful.
Quickly, she triggered the controls and the bubble retracted, the force cuffs falling away from him. Samell struggled to rise, sinking back into the seat. She moved to support him, yanking the silver band off his head and throwing it aside. “Hold still a second.” She fished deep in a pocket with one hand, bringing out a stim inject. “I hope you’re not going to be allergic to this or we’ll never make it. You’ve lost muscle mass since we last met.” She jabbed the inject into his arm, after pushing aside the shiny scarlet fabric of the cheesy robe. “We need to move right now.”
“As you say.” Jaw clenched, he leaned on her and they made it to the tent opening. Larissa reconnoitered, determining it was clear, and urged him outside. She kept him moving, pulling him into the shadow when a security guard’s patrol route brought him too close. They’d finally reached the perimeter of the fairground when she heard shouts from behind.
“Come on, we’d better keep to my timetable.” She steered him to the opening she’d made in the fence. “My speedster is hidden close by.”
Blaster shots sizzled above their heads. She ducked and pulled him down as well. Annoyance and adrenaline fired along her nerve endings, making her ready for combat. “Damn, I thought we had time to get clear. Can you crawl?”
He nodded so she set a course through the underbrush, moving as carefully as she could. She flattened against the ground as she heard sounds of small flyers or bikes overhead, and lights shone onto a clump of bushes close to them. But no sirens yet. There’s time.
“We mustn’t be retaken,” Samell whispered.
“We’re kind of pinned down right now.” She eyed the two speedsters crisscrossing the sky above them.
“Can you shoot them down?”
“Not without giving away our position.” She tugged his elbow and drew him to the east a few more feet.
“More men—Kinterow’s men—will be following us from the fairground soon.”
“Yeah, rescuing you always turns out to be trickier than I expected.” She grinned. “At least we have a lot of weapons this time.”
A blaster shot stabbed down from the sky, igniting a tree uncomfortably close. Larissa evaluated Samell’s condition. “If I shoot them, can you run?”
He shook his head, jaw clenched. “Despite your medicine, I’m weakened. This is my challenge to solve.”
Not sure what he meant, especially since he was an unarmed noncombatant, she drew a bead on the closer speedster, hoping to disable the engine. Beside her, Samell started humming. Strange time to be singing. Even as she had the thought, a strange sensation descended over her ears, as if her hearing had been partially blocked, but she could still hear the song her companion was singing, full throated, in a deep voice. The vibrations went through her bones and riveted her to the spot. A wave of black despair swept through her. Samell clamped his hand around her wrist, and the dreadful smothering emotion disappeared.
The speedsters fell out of the sky, engines running at full power, but apparently no longer under human control. She heard faint screams from the direction of the fairground.
She tugged at his sleeve. “We have to go now, while the enemy is disorganized.”
“The enemy,” he said, “Is dead. I sang them the death song.”
“Okay, whatever you did, we need to escape while we can.” She got him to lean on her, and they made their way to her speedster with excruciating slowness. Larissa flew at top speed in a straight line to her ship, figuring deception was a wasted effort now and escape was the paramount priority. She got them inside her ship and let Samell collapse against the bulkhead in slow motion while she yelled orders to the AI. “Take off now, emergency speed. Shift to hyperdrive at the earliest possible vector.”
The acceleration was brutal as her efficient AI flung the ship into space then snapped into the faster than light drive.
Larissa got Samell to his feet and led him to the small but highly efficient sickbay. She’d paid a lot to obtain the best equipment possible, suitable for a mercenary on her own to self-repair major medical problems. Her missions had been known to get hairy from time to time, and the nearest hospital was usually light years away. She wanted to be able to at least patch herself up and have a fighting chance of reaching help.
“Lie down here,” she said, as he fell onto the medtable. “We can run the diagnostics with your clothes on but you’ll have to take them off if the AI needs to conduct procedures.”
He gave her a fleeting smile as he laid back, and she swung the AI’s unit over him to initiate the evaluation. “If only the situation was different.”
“I need to know more about a guy before I get naked with him. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“There is no equivalent in my databanks to this sentient,” the AI said immediately.
“Use the human midlines then,” she said. “We need to know what to do
for him.”
Samell lay with his eyes closed as the various medical sensors ran their beams over his body. She didn’t like the way he was gray under the jade skin tone and how thin he’d become. Even his hair was stringy, the vibrant color faded.
“There is nothing to do. Although I appreciate your concern. And your help.” He reached for her hand, and she clasped her fingers around his. “At least thanks to you I’ll die as a free man, not a slave to the greed of others.”
“You’re not going to die.” She fought down a wave of panic at the resignation in his tone. “I didn’t go to all this effort just to lose you, so cut out spewing the defeatist crap.”
His laugh was weak, but his eyes shone as he stared at her. “You’re a warrior to be reckoned with. If only Thuun had sent you to me sooner.”
“Well, he didn’t, so we have to work with what we have.”
“Dehydration. Muscle depletion. Severe lack of nutrients. Stasis wasting syndrome.” The AI checked off its conclusions with depressing efficiency. “Other potential anomalies detected in brain function, no comparison available in database. Scar tissue. Improperly healed broken bones in left leg and right arm.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I fought hard alongside the other priests and warriors on the day we were kidnapped from our home.”
“Burns, electroshock after tremors in major nerve ganglions, contusions.” The AI’s ongoing catalog of Samell’s condition was relentless.
“What did that bastard do to you?”
“I told you Kinterow had many questions, about you, about how I’d communicated with you.” The tight smile came and went again. “I have a high pain threshold. He learned nothing.”
“What did you do back there at the fairground?”
“I sang the death song to them, for you. You didn’t deserve to be captured and killed for trying to help me.”
Larissa remembered the suffocating blanket of black depression sweeping over her as he sang, and a shiver spiraled in her spine. Samell had scary powers at his command. “At what cost to yourself?”
He nodded, as if she’d asked the right question. “To bring about the death of others in this manner requires great power from the singer. I was…depleted already from captivity, as your machine testifies. Now I have nothing left.”
“I can pump in the nutrients, my medunit can fix the physical problems—”
He shook his head. “I appreciate your efforts but those will only prolong my suffering.” He squeezed her hand more tightly. “Promise me you’ll report Kinterow, even if only anonymously. There are more of my people being held prisoner, used by others to do evil.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know the locations.” Eyes closing, he sighed.
She had a spike of terror, fearing he’d died in front of her, but his hand still clasped hers. Larissa leaned over the table, putting a command tone into her voice, to keep him with her. “Tell me right now what you need, and I’ll get it for you, soldier’s oath. I’m not going to let you die, damn it.”
“Trees.” His voice was faint.
“Trees? This is no time for jokes. I’m serious.”
Samell opened his eyes, blinking as if the light hurt. “My people draw energy from nature, from the life force of the planet. Since I was taken, I’ve had only bare scraps. Singing the death song depleted what little reserve I had left. Food nourishes the body but we Tulavarrans also require the energy to feed our gifts.”
“I’m kinda confused here, but I guess I get it. How do you get energy from being around trees?”
He gently shook his hand free from her clasp and held up both in front of his face before swiveling his palms toward her. “I communicate with the sentience embodied in an ancient tree and then through that channel I can tap the energy of the planet. The trees at the temples on Tulavarra were thousands of years old, conduits to all the power we’d ever need. Or so we thought.” He stroked her cheek then folded his hands on his chest. “Now you know a secret we’ve explained to no other outsider, not even under the harshest torture. My gift to you.” His eyelids drifted downward.
“I’ll get you trees,” she said savagely.
Samell made no further remark. She managed to get him undressed, with a minimal amount of assistance from him, tossing the cheap seer’s costume aside. She swallowed hard at unfastening his loincloth but the medunit needed completely unfettered access to his body to work properly. She tried not to allow her gaze to linger as she worked to position him on the table, but he was a gorgeous man, head to toe and everywhere in between, despite the burns, scars and other marks from Kinterow’s mistreatment.
“I wish the circumstances of you removing my clothing was different,” he said.
“That makes two of us.” She settled the panels of the medunit around him, secured the fastenings and stood back as the AI initiated its work. Larissa knocked on the side, and he peered at her drowsily. “See you when the treatments are done. With trees. You have my word.”
He raised his arm and set his hand on the clear panel, fingers spread wide. She positioned hers over it, separated by the machine. “Good dreams,” she said before walking away.
“I’ll dream of you, my warrior.”
Larissa forced herself to go to the control chamber first, hard as it was to walk away from sickbay. She was no medic or doctor. Her AI knew what to do, and she was no value added to the process. What she could do was find the man some damn trees.
“What planets are we near boasting an old growth forest? And privacy?” she asked the AI. “An uninhabited world would be best.”
A moment later the AI gave her three choices.
She rejected two immediately. “Too far to go, he’s in a badly weakened condition. Tell me about Cherram Six.”
“Survey report is available for your perusal,” the AI said. “Arboreal, no dominant life forms of high intelligence. No colony, no bases, no corporate activity. Low priority for development.”
While she read the statistics in the report, the AI projected the associated trideos the Survey scout had made of the forests which covered 80% of the northern continent. Larissa saw huge trees reaching to the sky and incredibly graceful avian creatures flitting through the dense, intertwined canopies. “Looks like what he needs. Time to get us there?”
“Two days.”
She chewed her lower lip. Samell was in pretty bad shape. Could he hold out two more days? “Can we put our passenger into modified stasis?”
“I don’t advise it. The patient already suffers from stasis wasting syndrome.”
“Well if he dies in the next forty-eight hours all of this is for nothing. Go ahead and do it once the treatments are finished.” She rose from the chair. “I’d better explain it to him so he doesn’t freak out.”
“The patient is presently unconscious.”
Larissa retraced her steps to sickbay anyway. Standing beside the humming medical unit, watching the colored lights representing the various treatments Samell was receiving flash and blink, she set her hand on the protective panel beside his head. “If you can hear me at all, I’ve decided to put you back into stasis while we make our way to the forested planet I’ve chosen. I know you hate stasis, and I don’t blame you, but you’re in a medically precarious state, according to my AI. It’ll only be for a few days.”
Do what you think best. I trust you.
The voice in her head was faint, and Samell gave no sign of actually being conscious, but Larissa decided to accept the comment as real and not wishful thinking on her part. She patted the machinery in lieu of being able to touch him. “I’ll check back on you in a while. Hang in there.”
She retreated to her own quarters and stripped, heading for the shower. Pausing in front of the mirror, she took inventory of her own scars and tatts. Would Samell find her pleasing? The thought annoyed her as much as her unusual flash of vanity did. She snorted, shaking her head as she continued on her way to the refresher chamber. “He’s pr
obably used to sleek temple dancers on his own world, and I don’t remotely fit the description.” And if he survives this, the last thing I want is a gratitude fuck.
Time passed slowly. She checked on Samell every few hours and stayed a long time by his bedside each visit even though he was deep in stasis. She hoped for another dream encounter with him but there was none, which was probably just as well, given his debilitated state. He didn’t need to expend his remaining energy trying to communicate via dreams.
She had a fragment of a dream the first night, herself standing alone on the lavender beach while storm winds blew froth from giant waves pounding the shore. She was alone, not even the small birds to keep her company, much less Samell. The beach was depressing and unnerving. Gathering her ridiculously thin shawl closely about her, she ordered herself to awaken.
Sleep was hard to come by for the rest of the night. Fortunately, the dream didn’t repeat.
To occupy herself, she cruised the news reports, stopping to scan the one about Yurmenet Twelve. Shocked, she read details of two crashed speeders and ten men found dead at or close to the fairgrounds, a number of them security guards hired by the operator of the fair, and the rest being employees of one of the larger attractions. There was speculation whether the men had died of nerve gas, given the victims had bled out from their ears and eyes, and were found locked into positions suggesting agonizing death throes. Planetary authorities had instituted enhanced security precautions and tightened the checks at the spaceport.
“Seven hells, whatever Samell did to them, he’s scary powerful.” She searched for more information but was unable to locate any follow-up stories. Someone had obviously shut the whole topic down. Larissa had illicit access to several Sectors law enforcement databases but, even there, she couldn’t find any other information. There was no mention of Samell or any accomplices he might have had.
The Fated Stars Page 5
