She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Jezar has told me that Ardasians don’t know where they originally come from, that their early history on this planet was almost completely lost.” Tory glanced at the genetic chart. “But when their greatest Seer had a vision of Old Earth’s destruction, the Ardasian government speculated that they had come from Earth.” He pointed to several names. “These are Ardasian names that can be found in Old Earth’s annals.” He stopped on one name.
“What does this notation mean?” She pointed to a symbol that appeared beside Darina’s name and several of her descendents.
“It’s a genetic marker.” Tory pointed to Darina’s name. “She was immune to the plague that destroyed Old Earth humans.”
Alex’s gaze snapped to his face. “Immune?”
“Immune,” he said, no trace of humor. “Entire bloodlines are immune.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A small part of the human population carries a gene making them immune to the effects of a deadly plague that killed millions.”
“And you think I may be one of them.”
“I am.”
She stared at him. He seemed quite serious. “How do you know?”
“Kera suggested a few years ago that I have a genetic workup done on Ardasia. Not only am I immune to the plague but I’m descended from some of those last fighters on Old Earth who settled here.” He switched the chart to a different one. Another Dudley but this one was Cano Dudley, not Abel. “Cano mated with another female soldier who survived that day. I’m descended from them.” He pointed to a fork three generations past Cano Dudleay. “This is Arden Ingle. He immigrated to Teran Five and then to Teran One.” He caught Alex’s glance. “He carried the gene.”
“I’m so confused. What does this gene have to do with the civil war on Teran One?”
“Think, Alex. What bloodlines are being eliminated on Teran One?” Tory’s voice was hard and cold. “My line, carrying the gene marker making us immune to the Old Earth plague. Your line, carrying the same gene. And finally, the ruling family, who, incidentally, has intermarried with your line and mine several times over the last hundred and fifty years.” He focused back on his genetic history, his bloodline. “All the bloodlines that could resist the plague are being systematically destroyed.”
“But why?”
He didn’t glance at her. “To control the survivors.”
“That’s why they had me transport the vials.” Suddenly, it all made sense. Even if there had been a breach, she was immune. But anyone else would be infected—and probably would have eliminated her for them.
She started to shake. Someone was playing God. To release the plague on a planet was to doom it. To survive the plague didn’t necessarily mean survival, since the plague created zombies.
Tory’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. It suddenly seemed very cold and she couldn’t stop shivering. The idea that anyone, human or otherwise, would release a deadly plague on whole planets and murder those who might survive was abhorrent.
“You wouldn’t die from exposure, but anyone else who tampered with it would.” His body heat wasn’t enough. She thought she’d never feel warm again.
The idea that someone, anyone human or otherwise, would do this seemed inconceivable. “Are you absolutely positive that the containment box had plague vials?”
“The Ardasians confirmed it.” Tory turned her away from the display on the plague. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s a fact. Someone has a plan and it doesn’t involve a lot of survivors. I think whoever it is didn’t count on the Ardasians helping us. Perhaps they hoped no one would know until it was too late.” He led her to a different display. The corridor that laid out Old Earth history ended at a long perpendicular hallway, one ran left, one ran right. “To the left, Ardasian history from its inception. To the right, Teran system history. Take your pick.”
Alex took a deep breath. “I’d like to see the Ardasian history.”
He smiled, the first she’d seen in a while. “Good choice.”
It was amazing. Every artifact and display was dated with an Ardasian date and with an Old Earth date, still used by the Terans in their current planetary dating. She stared at the earliest artifact, which was dated Old Earth 900 BC. It was an ancient machine, something from Old Earth that the new Teran planets had never preserved. She glanced at Tory. “They call it a Gahnat. Do you know what it is?”
“It’s an ancient computer.” Tory peered closer. “The story is that a handful of early Old Earthlings made it here and settled. How and why they don’t know. Apparently, some great catastrophe struck them and they lost much of their technological knowledge before they arrived. The myth is they wandered in space for a generation and found this planet when all hope was almost lost. This is all they could preserve after landing.”
“Why do they think they come from Old Earth?” She gazed at the other artifacts grouped around it. None of them seemed familiar.
“Genetics,” Tory answered her question and pointed to a gene chart. Less specific than the one they’d seen earlier, it did show prominent names, leaders, who were genetically connected to Old Earth DNA. “At some point, the Ardasians began to trace their origins. Something led them to Old Earth—a myth, a forgotten legend, something. They began to study Earthlings.” He led her to another display. “Early Ardasian history mentions an alien race that saved their early civilization from destruction. Interbreeding with them began to produce Ardasians with mental gifts. They developed those talents, honed them, bred for them. Then, they began to have visions. Too late to save the Earth, but they did help to get the Teran planets colonized.”
She gazed at a prominent display of a tall, beautiful, dark-haired woman. The years below her picture showed she’d been twenty-three when she died. “Who is this?”
“Lyra. The great Seer. She told the Judges of Ardasia to save Old Earth, to rescue Darina Stanton and her people.” Tory held Alex’s hand. “If it wasn’t for her, you and I wouldn’t be here. She saw the destruction coming. She was too late to save Earth, but she helped stop the plague from spreading. She died trying to save us.”
Sacrifice. So much of the Ardasian history was sacrifice for Old Earth, for their ancestors, for a people they didn’t know. Now they were sacrificing again.
“Jezar signed up with you because of the vision,” she blurted out. She didn’t know if she wanted to talk about what happened at Kera’s home. The bridge, the merging of their minds, the discoveries in his thoughts were so raw and emotional, she wasn’t sure she wanted to explore them.
“Yes, he did.” Tory stopped at a bench, sat down and gently pulled her into his lap. “When you’re ready, Alexandra, we can discuss what we saw.”
She knew he didn’t mean the vision. He meant the strands, the tangled skein of thoughts she’d unwound to reveal the core of him. His love for her. She wanted to share the joy she’d felt when she touched it, stroked it. But she was terrified of what he’d found. Or rather, what he might not have found.
“Would you like me to start?” he asked her softly.
“I don’t know.” She didn’t know what it all meant. He was her mate. Would their revelations change that? No. She took a deep breath. “I found the core, the love for me that stands in your center.”
“And it frightened you,” he said and she felt his withdrawal.
She clasped his face in her hands. “No, not at all. It…shamed me.”
He blinked. “Shamed you?”
She brushed the hair away from his face. “Not once, in five years of agony, did you doubt the love you felt for me. But I—” She couldn’t look at him, see the disappointment, the hurt on his face.
“Yes, let’s talk about what I saw,” he said and his fingers gripped her chin and forced her to face him. “I said it was an ocean, a strong, steady ocean, with waves of emotion crashing on a shore of shifting sand. But there was rock there, Alex. Around it, a flood of fear
and guilt, but the rock was solid. That rock was your love for me. It was buried, battered but you held onto it. In the face of overwhelming grief and pain, you kept it strong and looming in your sea of fear.”
Tears pricked her eyes. “I let so many things come between us.”
“We are together now, my Saria.”
Once she had thought that word was a shackle, an insult. But she realized what it meant. It meant she belonged to him. And he to her. Mutual nullification. He loved her. She brushed his lips with hers. “I am your Saria. Until my death or yours.” The ancient words flowed from her and from the way the color drained from his face and his hands shook as he pulled her closer, they rocked Tory to the core.
“Get a room,” Tesia’s voice boomed in the corridor.
Rather than jump away from him, Alex kissed Tory gently. “We will. Thanks.”
The engineer sighed noisily.
“We should get going,” Jezar announced. “Dink will be expecting us back.”
Leaving the museum, Alex wondered what corridors would be added. Perhaps humanity would be a lost and forgotten culture like Placido, the deserted planet.
Chapter Thirteen
The trip back to the launch pad was uneventful and Tory tried to relax in the moment instead of focusing on the future. It wasn’t going to be easy. The issue had gone from one planetary civil war to a plan for genocide. He ran through the prominent names on his list of possible suspects on Teran One. Who would want power, not just on Teran One, but on the other Teran planets as well? Even someone who wanted to rule all human planets would balk at destroying a majority of the population to do it.
Wouldn’t they?
Tory shut out the noise around him as he and Alex negotiated the huge shuttle bay. What had his father told him? A truly great leader plans not for his personal future but for his children. To ensure a bloodline takes a generation or more. He was looking for someone who had been planning for a very long time and who had no hope of power for himself, just for his bloodline.
The rival families had a stake, but none of them had been prominent lately. At least, according to Tory’s sources. But Tory wasn’t sure about his sources anymore.
He and Alex parted ways with Jezar and Tesia. Tory went through the motions, checking through the systems of the shuttle to prepare for takeoff. Alex hadn’t said much either. Granted, she’d had to absorb a lot of information.
He’d been stunned when Kera revealed his bloodline, his connection to Ardasian history. Once again, a select group of humans stood against a faceless enemy. He could only hope the Ardasian scientists found a cure for those who didn’t carry the gene.
The person behind all this had to be someone who not only carried the gene, but knew about it. Damn. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Planning. A generation of planning.
He flicked on his com link. “Please connect me to Kera Alstar.”
“Connecting,” a voice responded. He waited. They needed a direction, a name, something before they headed back into Teran space.
“Tory? What do you need?” Kera’s warm voice filled the cockpit.
“A name. It’s going to take a while. Can you access Teran visitors for the last forty years?”
“What am I looking for?”
“Someone who accessed the bloodline charts about the plague gene. The person we’re looking for has to know it exists. The only evidence of that is on Ardasia.”
“You’re assuming this person didn’t read the data somewhere.”
“This isn’t common data, Kera. Someone knows specifics, the bloodlines with the gene and the ones without it.”
Alex spoke up. “And it has to be someone who also has the gene. That means they’re on the charts.”
Tory shot a glance at his mate. She followed his line of reasoning so quickly. He loved that. For a moment, he was distracted by the way her fingers threaded through her hair as she braided the long strands. He preferred it down, but something about when she restrained it turned him on.
She caught his eye and smiled. What was it about her that made the blood drain from his brain to his dick? He shook his head. “We don’t have time,” he muttered. They had to get back to his ship and make plans to decoy the buyer.
“What was that?” Kera asked him.
“Nothing. Let me know what you find out. Thanks, Kera.”
A sigh came over the com. “Watch your back, Tory. I don’t like the murky visions I’m getting.”
“Will do.”
Alex had flicked on the engines and run through most of the checklist while he’d talked to Kera and they lifted off the launch pad. “Where’s Jezar?” He searched the grid on the screen for the signature of the other shuttle.
“They took off ahead of us.” Alex adjusted the engine speed. Tory sat back and watched her. Behind the console of a ship, Alex was graceful and confident, like when she made love. Her fingers flew over the buttons and her focus reminded him of when she took his cock in her mouth—complete concentration.
Great. Now, he had a monster hard-on. He’d probably get one every time she flew a ship too. He turned his attention back to the grid screen and his pulse leapt a little faster. Shit.
“We’ve got company.”
Alex’s gaze jerked to the grid. She swiveled in her chair and increased their speed. Tory focused on getting the weapons hot. The shuttle had great shielding but the weapons were not fighter material. They were more defensive than offensive.
We could use a little help. Jezar’s strained voice reached Tory.
“Jezar and Tesia are taking fire,” he told Alex.
They worked silently, preparing the shuttle for a fight with Teran One fighters. The first blast came from their port side and out of view of their screen. It rocked the shuttle and alarms blared, piercing his eardrums. Damn it. The shield held, but the fighters were using a resonator. Which meant when they fired on the shields, the whole fucking ship vibrated. They would be ripped apart.
He had to drop the damned shield.
“Alex—”
“I know. I’m on it. Let me adjust the shields. I can—” Another shot rattled them so hard Alex was flung out of her seat. “Shit. I can change the frequency of the shield’s resonance—”
“Don’t explain it to me, just do it.” He had his hands full with the navigation, keeping the ship from plunging planetside.
Another shot slammed him forward into the console and sharp pain in his lip was followed by the copper taste of his own blood. Pain came next but he ignored it, his mind focused on keeping the ship on course.
“Got it.” Alex pressed a button just as another blast left the Teran One fighter. The shield didn’t absorb the shot. It reflected it. The fighter wasn’t prepared and the ship exploded.
“Brace yourself,” Tory ordered and he slammed the shields back up. Some debris still hit the shuttle, the sound of metal on metal screeching through the cabin. “We’ve got another one coming.”
“Engine two is down.”
“Adjusting.”
“That next fighter isn’t going to use a resonator.”
“I hope not. I’ve got the shields back up,” he told her. The weapons light came on. Finally, they were up and running. “Weapons hot.”
“I can’t get a lock.”
“They’re firing.” He hoped Alex was right and they didn’t fire a resonator again. If they did, the shuttle would sustain a lot of damage. But he couldn’t leave them exposed in case the other ship had communicated with the one they destroyed. He could only hope Jezar had gotten back to the ship. There had been no mental connection since Jezar had gone to his own shuttle.
The blast slammed into the shields. They had used a disintegrator. Thank the stars. “No damage to the shields. Got a lock?”
“Got it. Firing.”
Alex fired, the weapon flared against the dark and hit the fighter. It dropped from view.
“Where is it?” Alex demanded.
The blip on the grid spiraled
toward Ardasia’s orbit. “It’s gone planetside.”
“You’d better warn them.”
“Ardasia, this is Shuttle One of The Pinnacle. There is a disabled ship hitting your orbit.”
“Acknowledged. Planetary defenses have been activated.”
Tory watched the blip on the grid disappear. Just…disappear. Whatever the Ardasians did, it worked.
We made it back to the ship. Jezar’s voice caused a flood of relief to wash over Tory.
Damage?
Minimal, though Tesia is quite upset.
Oh? What did you do?
For a few moments, Tory thought Jezar wasn’t going to answer him. Clearly he and Tesia had…something going on between them.
Finally, Jezar answered him. I created a mental connection with her.
Something deeper than the one you have with me, I presume. There was nothing upsetting about the communication he had with Jezar. It had to be something different. Though Tory was aware there were several levels of connection for the Ardasians, he didn’t know the implications of most of them.
She is…uncomfortable with my thoughts.
So lock them up. What was wrong with him? They had bigger things to worry about than his complicated relationship with the ship’s engineer.
It’s…not that simple.
It never is. What do you want me to do?
I don’t know.
It was so rare to hear those three words from Jezar that, for a moment, Tory was at a loss. He glanced at Alex, busy at the controls. Hang on, Jezar. “I have a question for you, dear heart.”
“What’s that?”
“Say the bridge connection happened in a moment crisis.”
She frowned and shot him a glare. “You mean it didn’t?”
“Think of the fire fight we were just in.”
“Jezar bridged with Tesia?” She shook her head. “Idiot.”
“It’s done. What can he do to make her comfortable?”
Alex snorted. “Grovel.”
Tory grinned. “I don’t think so. You women say you want a man to grovel, but you don’t respect a man who does.”
She laughed, her golden eyes dancing. “Okay, you’re right. I don’t know about Tesia, but I’d need some reassurance that puts everything in perspective. Being aware of another person’s thoughts can be overwhelming. And it depends on what she found out too,” she said, the smile dropping from face. “He’d better figure it out himself.”
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