by Rhonda Mason
She’d never said the words “you owe me,” and she never would. She didn’t need to, they both knew it. Every breath of pain she took was in some way his fault. The final breaking of her will had been at his hands, even if Dolan’s machine drove his mind. He could never repay her.
Never.
* * *
::But Kay!::
Standing in one of the many shuttle bays aboard the Yari, Kayla gave Corinth a quelling look as he argued—for the hundredth time—that he should be allowed to travel to Ordoch.
::I’m a Reinumon, too.::
“Of course you are. But we have plenty of Reinumons attending already, so there’s no need for you to take the risk.”
::You’re letting Vayne go.::
She glanced to where her twin stood, speaking quietly with Tia’tan while they both geared up in ventilation suits. That he was here surprised the shit out of her. He’d made his feelings quite clear about traveling to war-torn Ordoch by any means, never mind through the Tear.
Natali had commanded it, and an uncomfortable silence had fallen over the two of them. That thing they did, of looking at each other but never quite making eye contact, somehow convinced him, and he nodded without a word. Kayla didn’t need psi powers to feel the war inside him when he did.
“Vayne is an adult and can make his own choices. For now, I’m still the boss of you.” She ruffled his hair in an attempt at light-heartedness but he pushed her hand away.
::I’m not a child, Kay.::
Oh, but you are, in so many ways still. Thankfully, Corinth wasn’t in her mind this time. He looked pretty belligerent, though, so she tried a different line of reasoning. “You promised Trinan and Vid that you’d take a break from helping Larsa in the engine room and get some exercise with them. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”
::But—::
She held up a hand, cutting off the protest. “You’ll go to Ordoch soon enough, just not today. All right?”
He gave her a sulky nod and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
Teenagers.
She blinked. When had he reached that stage? It felt like he’d been a child only moments ago.
“Make sure you stick close with Trinan and Vid today.” She hated to leave him on the dubious safety of the ship, but she couldn’t ask for better bodyguards. The agents treated him as if he were their son.
::You already said that.:: Even his mind voice was petulant.
Let the guys deal with him today, she thought, a little thankfully.
She donned her own ventilation suit, checking that the liquid cooling lines were in place and the electronic life-support sensors functioned properly. Even for such a short spacewalk— from the shuttle to the Tear—no one took chances. Corinth helped her climb into the EMU she’d practically been living in this past week. Malkor, Vid, and Trinan arrived in the shuttle bay just as she popped her head through the neck ring.
Corinth struggled to maintain his attitude problem even as his eyes lit up at the sight of the agents. Excitement won out, and he waved at them just like the happy kid he’d become since leaving exile on Altair Tri.
“You, sir, are late for training,” Vid boomed out in mock chastisement. They might be overprotective, but they never treated him like a kid. Which was probably why Corinth had loved them from the beginning.
“Today is self-defense day, so we’d better get cracking,” Trinan added.
::Gotta go, Kay! Good luck.:: And then he was jogging out the door.
Malkor approached and then picked up her helmet. She eyed him. “Tell me you’re not going to be sulky about being left behind as well. I’ve had all I can take from Corinth already.” Natali had made it very clear the night before that imperials were not invited on this trip. She’d been polite about it, but Natali’s version of polite was always a little clipped.
Malkor shook his head. “Just came to see you off.” He looked like he might say more, but Ariel announced that her preflight check was done and Kayla’s family all began piling into the shuttle. Malkor handed her the helmet. “Don’t get sheared in half by that temporal anomaly, okay?”
She smiled. “No promises.”
* * *
The trip through the Tear, for all the danger it posed, was entirely uneventful. Kayla, Vayne, Natali, and Uncle Ghirhad emerged unscathed on the other side, arriving in the darkly lit chamber the Tear had carved for itself in Ordoch’s bedrock.
Kayla breathed a sigh of relief.
A short male Ordochian awaited their arrival on the edge of the room. Once everyone had popped the seal on their helmets and removed them, the man bowed and introduced himself as Mishe. He was quite possibly the most beautiful young man she’d ever seen, with hair and eyes the color of a tropical sea, and the kind of delicate, classic features Ordochians had celebrated in statuary for hundreds of generations.
Suddenly she was staggered by so great an emotion that she couldn’t breathe. The pleasure-pain bloomed in her chest and squeezed out all other sensation.
It happened, it finally happened.
She reached out and Vayne’s hand met hers halfway, clasping hard. His emotions swirled within her, identical.
Natali, a sheen of tears in her ice-blue eyes, whispered the words echoing through them all:
“We’re home.”
* * *
Mishe led them to a chamber where they could doff their EMUs and change into the clothes they’d brought. For Natali and Kayla, that meant weapons as well. Kris and an ion pistol for Kayla, a telescoping baton and NX-12 plasma handgun for Natali. Armed with high and low tech, as any good ro’haar should be. A weapon designed to fight other Wyrds seemed in poor taste to Kayla, but she certainly hadn’t wasted any breath trying to convince Natali to carry an imperial weapon.
Kayla and Vayne followed behind Natali and an unusually subdued Uncle Ghirhad, as Mishe led them through the tunnels and up to what he said was the main rebel base. Surprisingly, the base was located outside of Vankir City, which Kayla was used to thinking of as an industrial wasteland. Then again, an abandoned and defunct manufacturing facility, one of hundreds in the zone, made the perfect space to hide out.
Though she’d never been there, the facility was immediately dear to her simply by being Ordochian. The architecture, the building materials—even the lighting—were as foreign to the empire as they were familiar to her.
Her imaginings of what it might be like to return to Ordoch after five years in exile couldn’t come close to the poignant reality of the moment. She shook her head to clear it. There would be time for sentiment later. Now, it was time to plan a rebellion.
Mishe finally brought them to a sealed door and keyed in a code for entry. The locks released with a whoosh and they were ushered in. Mishe announced them with a solemnity and deference Kayla hadn’t heard since before the coup. The four people waiting in the room bowed as one, all of which had her feeling more than a little uncomfortable. The things she’d done to survive the last five years, to keep Corinth safe, they were not the kind of things that inspired people to bow to you. The reminder of the schism between her former life and her current existence made her feel dirty.
Vayne seemed equally uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Natali, by contrast, looked regal as she confined her response to an acknowledging nod.
The man in front, who Kayla recognized as Wetham from prior comm calls, opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Uncle Ghirhad was across the room, introducing himself jovially and shaking hands with enough force to rattle teeth.
Now everyone in the room looked as uncomfortable as Kayla, Uncle Ghirhad excluded.
“Thank you all for coming,” Wetham finally managed, once he had introduced his three lieutenants.
“Of course,” Natali said, as if she’d been doing them a favor rather than exactly what she wanted. She and Kayla had agreed it would be good to tour the base, as well as meet some of the rebels in person and hopefully inflame their patriotism.
Wetham was a slender man of indeterminate middle age. He hailed from the Liamets, a lesser-known family that had fallen to the bottom of the noble hierarchy as the psi powers of its members weakened with each successive generation. Kayla hadn’t heard of him before the coup. Now, with his confident stance and direct, piercing gaze, Wetham would have fitted in among the royals attending the Empress Game. His demeanor alone left no doubt that he was the person who had pulled together the scattered pockets of dissidents in a cohesive resistance. With the help of his lieutenants, he’d implemented a command structure, organized supply runs and recruitment drives, planned strategic military operations, and infiltrated the imperial troops with several well-placed spies.
More than the entire royal family combined had done for Ordoch in the last five years.
Really, they should be bowing to him.
Wetham and Natali engaged in the polite jockeying for position—disguised as small talk—that all world leaders engaged in upon meeting one another. Kayla had had no taste for it before the coup, and had certainly had her fill of it during her time as Isonde. Vayne stood rigidly beside her. Now that the emotional homecoming moment had passed, he looked as displeased to be here, in the middle of a war zone, as she expected.
“Let’s get down to business,” Wetham said, taking charge of things. It seemed that neither he nor Natali had reached a mutually agreed upon hierarchy of power. Or at least, agreed upon by Natali.
Wetham motioned for everyone to take a seat at the round table in the center of the room. “As far as the situation on the Yari is concerned, I absolutely agree with you that more forces are necessary if we are to assure control of the vessel.”
“Thank you,” Natali said. “I recognize that our rebellion is undermanned, and that every soldier is needed on Ordoch. I do not make the request for troops lightly.”
Wetham shifted his gaze to Kayla. “You’ve made some friends among the empire, have you not?”
Everyone stared at her. With the gaze of her rightful ruler on her, of the rebellion’s leader and lieutenants, even her il’haar, it felt like treason to admit that she had befriended—and even liked—some of the enemy.
She forced herself to speak, and there was no way to deny it. “I have.”
“Are there no more sympathizers you could call on? As Natali said, I need every rebel soldier on Ordoch. Perhaps this Agent Malkor has people he could call on?”
“No. There will be no more aid from that quarter.” Not unless Ardin and Isonde could magically reverse the Council of Seven’s decision to double-down on the Ordochian occupation.
Natali shook her head as well. “The Yari’s existence must be kept from the imperials. It is in Imperial Space after all, and though it is nearly impossible to access, it is still highly vulnerable at this point. We’ll have to rely on our own people.” She focused her gaze on Wetham. “How many will you be sending?”
Natali’s question, phrased such that her demand was assumed to be met, was so typical of her, so familiar from childhood, that Kayla almost smiled.
::Same light touch as always.:: Vayne spoke into her mind, and she heard amusement there.
Wetham’s face showed nothing of his thoughts. “I can spare… ten people.”
“Twenty,” Natali countered.
“Knowledge of the Yari and the existence of the Tear are closely guarded secrets here as well. We can’t afford to lose such an advantage as the Yari to the empire. Few have the clearance to be part of such a team.”
“But our people do know we’re alive, correct?” she asked.
One of the lieutenants spoke up. “We spread word among the rebellion, but have hopefully avoided the imperial forces present from hearing it.”
Vayne spoke up. “So if no one knows about the Yari and our attempts to fix this supposedly glorious battleship, what do they think we’ve been doing?”
Wetham shrugged. “You have been housed at an undisclosed location for your own safety.”
“Hiding?” Vayne sounded incredulous. “We’re risking our asses on an ancient ship filled with crazy people plotting our demise and you told them we were sitting safe and sound while they fought for Ordoch? Unbelievable.”
“They must be really impressed by us,” Kayla muttered, less than pleased herself.
“As I said, the security—”
Natali waved away the rest of Wetham’s sentence. “We understand.” She shot her siblings a quelling look before continuing. “For security on the Yari, we could make do with fifteen people. Assuming they’re well trained, of course.”
Fifteen would double their number, and go a long way toward easing Kayla’s mind about Corinth and Vayne’s safety.
Wetham acquiesced without further argument. “They will be ready by the end of the day. As for your other request…” He gestured to one of his lieutenants. “Anita worked up a list of the three best hyperstream drive scientists in terms of design and construction.”
The lieutenant retrieved a few sheets of reprintable paraffin paper from her binder. Natali arched a brow at the outdated medium and Anita flushed. “Our access to tech is somewhat limited. These you can take with you.” She handed the papers to Natali, still looking embarrassed. Wetham might look at ease with the fabled Reinumon heirs, but it was clear his lieutenants were still in awe.
“Great foresight,” Kayla said, and offered a smile. Their attitude was making her skin crawl. Well, they had all come back from supposed death, but… seriously.
Anita seemed to regain her confidence. “Fedee and Jordon are the leading structural engineers, and Mesa tops the field in fuel sublimation and injection systems. Unfortunately, they all live in technological cities heavily occupied by the empire. The empire is hot to get our more sophisticated hyperstream design integrated with their current one. Mesa refused to help them adapt our fuel-injection processes to their inferior fuel source, so she’s in lockdown. And while Fedee and Jordon aren’t technically prisoners, they’re living in Chun’sa, and that city’s under a dusk til dawn curfew. Access to it is by permit only.”
Fantastic. Though not surprising. One couldn’t hope to hold a planet while all the brightest minds ran free.
Anita said, “There are a lot of other scientists on this list, but in my opinion one of these three will give us the best shot of completing the Yari’s drive.”
“Confer with your engineer to see whom she prefers,” Wetham said.
“We’ll take all of them.” Natali’s statement hushed the room.
The lieutenants looked to Wetham, who seemed to be debating the best reply. “With respect, that’s just not possible.”
“Make it possible,” she countered. “Why did you give me three names if it cannot be done?”
“To offer you options, ma’am,” Anita said. “You or the ship’s engineer have a much better idea of which type of help is needed. I wanted to give you the best choices available.”
Another of the lieutenants—Kayla had already forgotten his name—jumped in. “We reasoned that we might, might, be able to spring one of these three. As soon as we did, however, the empire would know we were after hyperstream scientists and all of the others would be locked down tight.”
Natali switched her gaze to the lieutenant, who seemed to wilt a little under her stare. “So take them simultaneously.”
“We don’t have the kind of covert operatives or intelligence resources to pull that off.”
“I don’t care how you do it, just get me those three scientists. ASAP.” Natali’s lips tightened the slightest bit, a sure sign of her frustration to anyone who knew her well. “We’re not building hovercarts, for void’s sake. If the Yari is ever going to fly again, never mind in time to help us drive out the empire, then I need the very best people on that engine.” She looked at each person in the room in turn as she spoke. “This is the rebellion’s number one priority, is that clear?”
Again the lieutenants waited for Wetham’s lead.
The balance of powe
r certainly had not been settled yet.
“It might be possible,” he finally said, “but I’ll need some of your imperials.” He didn’t look at Kayla as he spoke, but she answered anyway.
“Absolutely not,” she burst out at the same time as Natali said, “That’s acceptable.”
Wetham nodded as if it had already been decided. “The commander of one of the imperial bases has come over to our side. He’s agreed to give them falsified papers as members of his staff. Your imperials should be able to move about freely after that.”
“They’re wanted fugitives,” Kayla nearly shouted.
“Deep in the heart of the empire, maybe.” The rebel leaders seemed unconcerned. “But it’s not like the soldiers here have access to the daily news back home. And they’re certainly not going to be recognized on sight.”
“He’s right,” Natali agreed. “They speak whatever language that is without an accent, which none of us can manage. Plus they have the look, they know the rules…”
Kayla had plenty to say to that, but wouldn’t do so in front of others. She leaned close to her sister and bit out, “A word.” She stood without waiting for Natali’s response, and bowed slightly to Wetham. “Please excuse us a moment.” Kayla was out the room before anyone could stop her.
A moment later Natali, followed by Vayne, joined her in the corridor. As the door shut behind them, Kayla could hear Uncle Ghirhad excitedly take up the conversation with the rebels.
She checked to make sure the corridor was empty before speaking. “You are not offering Malkor and the octet as bargaining chips.”
Natali eyed her, probably trying to assess how flexible Kayla was on this point. “I am merely offering their services. They came here to help, didn’t they?”
“They’re helping on the Yari.”
“Not as much as a psionic would, not when our enemy is Wyrd.”
