A flush of warmth came over him, moving from the top of his head downward in a tidal wave, until even his tail tingled, making it twitch uncontrollably. No breeze would be enough to cool his body. Kierce anchored himself in the branch with his deadly talons, closed his eyes tight and hung on. A mistake to go so high. A fall from here might cause even him lasting damage, whether he could land on all four feet or not. He’d been avoiding the trees until the need to keep her in sight as long as possible had become overwhelming. He’d known there was a flashback coming on—he walked away from her to keep her safe. Whatever drugs Innimarrg used were potent, and the vivid recurrences were unnerving. Probably not what the damn scientist intended to happen but typical of their sloppy work. Kierce stubbornly refused to give in the sheer terror battering his mind because he was afraid he might not reclaim his sanity.
If he could have transformed, talked to Elianna, been held in her arms, he might have been able to fight his way to the surface and wrest control of his own mind away from the pernicious Khagrish drug. His link to her was a golden thread, a blessed anchor in a world prone to tilting mad and sideways with little warning as the fucking med seized his mind again and again. But he refused to put her at risk.
Nor did he want to place himself in the vulnerable position of transforming in front of these other Badari, about whom he knew nothing as yet. He couldn’t protect her from them when he was in between forms. And if there were Khagrish hiding behind the scenes, conducting an elaborate experiment, he refused to reveal the secret of his ability to move between man and beast form.
Cracking his eyes open the slightest bit, Kierce moaned and clung tighter to the branch under him. Mad colors, screaming voices, scenes of utter horror assaulted him and, in response, he instinctively pushed deeper into the tiger’s psyche. The beast had no worries about its sanity or whether he could ever be a man again. The creature the Khagrish had made him into comprehended hunger, cold, thirst—basic primal needs. The drug didn’t have the power to mess with the animal brain, which shrugged it off as a storm of unknown nature, hunkered down, and waited for the buffeting to stop.
I will make it back to you, he promised Elianna in his head, as he submerged conscious thought into the tiger’s raw maelstrom of instincts. Or die trying.
Disappointing as her brief visit to see Kierce had been, Elianna had butterflies of excitement in her gut the next morning when she met Gabe and Walt at the landing field as dawn broke. She’d stopped at the communal dining hall long enough to grab a slice of bread and a heaping dollop of scrambled eggs and make herself a messy sandwich to eat on the go before hustling to the rendezvous point. The chance to go over a Chimmer spaceship was astounding and her eagerness to dive into the alien tech, as well as to help the Badari make contact with the Sectors made her jumpy.
A small sour thread of guilt sat in the corner of her mind though, dimming her enthusiasm. Leaving Kierce alone here was a hard thing to stomach. But really, the Alpha’d given her no choice.
Two other humans were waiting, plus a shiny metallic ovoid floating in the air.
Gabe performed the introductions as they huddled in the lee of a shuttle to avoid the early morning breeze from the lake. “This is Sam McCullough and Lorrali Finster, who have been trying to help us retrofit the ship for a human expedition. And this,” he said, pointing to the hovering entity, “Is MARL17. MARL Primary, who you met yesterday in the conference room, creates subunits of himself, or manifestations as he calls them, on occasion to help with various missions.”
“Pleased to meet you all,” she said.
“Mostly we’ve been studying the design and the circuitry,” Sam said. “Haven’t touched anything, other than a few simple tweaks and tests.”
“I’m assigned to work directly with you,” MARL17 said, drifting closer to her and flashing turquoise and green. “I am to be your sidekick.”
Wondering if she needed a so-called sidekick, Elianna repressed a laugh. “I’m sure that’ll be helpful.”
“The flight takes a couple of hours,” Gabe said. “Walt and I flipped for pilot duty, and I won. So the rest of you can use the time to do a briefing.”
By the time the flyer arrived at the isolated island, far out in the ocean, sticking up from the water, heavily forested, Elianna’s head was full of interesting, somewhat disjointed facts about the Chimmer ship. Apparently, it was captured by the Badari through a lucky happenstance, the details of which she wasn’t told. The original crew of two aliens was dead, but the ship appeared to be big enough for three humans. Among the concerns were the navigation system, the life support system, glitches in the engine, and the possibility the alien crew had tampered with any or all of the vital circuits during the final on-board battle.
“She doesn’t behave the way the ships did in the simulator we were trained on,” Walt said. “Admittedly, I had that evolution of classes a long time ago, but from what I remember, the Nicolle is exhibiting more than a few worrisome quirks. Gabe agrees.”
Elianna raised her eyebrows, remembering the woman Nicolle who’d addressed the new arrivals in the valley and been in the meeting with her. “Have I met the person the ship is named for?”
Walt confirmed her guess. “Indeed you have. Aydarr decided it was appropriate to honor Nicolle, since she was involved in the hijacking. Our biggest concern, though, is whether the ship has been preprogrammed to head home to Chimmer space the minute the hyperdrive is engaged.”
Elianna turned her attention to the two techs. “What have you found so far?”
“Not much,” Sam said. “We’ve been mapping the connections and interfaces.”
“We were reluctant to light up the boards,” Lorrali added. “Until we had a better understanding. This whole thing is way outside my area of expertise so I’m glad you’re here. I’m a repair tech for harvesters and drones for agro uses, nothing to do with ships.”
“I have the knowledge acquired to date in my memory,” MARL17 said, executing a lazy spin in the aisle. “I can display the explorations so far.”
“Please. I can ask better questions if I have a visual in front of me.” As Elianna leaned against her seat cushions, she reflected how desperate the Badari Alpha must be, to risk using this ship in an attempt to reach the Sectors. So many unknowns and places to go wrong.
MARL17 projected a set of drawings in midair and rapidly added more layers until the entire ship was represented. Elianna shook her head. “Clear the display and revert to where you started, please. Let me see the initial mapping and hold off building on it until I ask for more.”
Surface completely orange for a moment, the AI silently erased the entire display, layer by layer, until the schematic she’d requested was the only thing left hovering in midair.
Frustrated at being confined to a seat when she wanted to examine every nuance of the image…no, scratch that, what she actually wanted was to see and touch the ship itself. “How long till we arrive?”
Walt laughed at her impatience as he glanced at his wrist chrono. “Another half hour. You can’t see the ship from the air—MARL Primary established some kind of camouflage layer over the island in case the Khagrish ever flew over it. As far as we can tell the enemy doesn’t spend any time in this part of the planet, but you never know with them.”
“The Chimmer could probably locate it easily, using a reverse homing beacon,” she said, drawing effortlessly on the information she’d stored up long ago. The idea was profoundly unsettling and her heart beat faster. What if the enemy made an unexpected appearance while she was working on the ship?
“We hope the Chimmer aren’t alarmed as yet about the crew not making it to their next stop, but we have no way of knowing when they will be declared overdue. But yes, another reason we need to expedite getting ourselves out of the solar system.” Despite the dangers he was discussing, Walt’s manner and tone implied he was relaxed and had no worries.
She wasn’t fooled by his casual demeanor. She’d had experience with elite
Kierce came awake in a rush beset by a premonition of trouble, and he sampled the air in all directions. Khagrish? There was no stink of their scent, but there was also no hint of Elianna. Unable to believe she was no longer in his vicinity, he prowled the perimeter of the enclosure, desperately seeking even the faintest whiff of the woman he sought.
Although he was in the tiger form, worrying about what had happened to Elianna while he slept pulled him from the depths of the animal mind.
The moon damned drug lurking in his nerve endings pounced then, assaulting his mind, taking over his senses and threatening to drive him mad. Yowling, shaking his head, he raced through the space he’d been given, bounding up the hill and back down, prowling along the edge of the force barrier, climbing halfway into his favorite tree and leaping to the ground again. The constant motion helped keep the terrible thoughts away, but he could feel them pushing on the edge of his consciousness when he slackened his pace.
Why would she leave me? Was she taken away as a punishment? When are these people going to tell me what they want? How can I get her back?
He tried to pursue a line of rational thinking, attempted to plan an escape to seek out the woman he cared about so desperately. But battling the vivid and traumatic residual effects of the drug brought the urge to become the tiger and cower in hiding until this chemical assault ended. His Badari consciousness flickered in and out. He growled and coughed and emitted full throated demands for Elianna’s return, to no avail.
His Badari guard watched him with open mouthed astonishment. If I could reach you, we’d have a fight such as you’ve never seen, and you would tell me where she is.
Kierce realized he was stalking the man and shook his head. The guards weren’t the problem. Whoever was the mastermind here must have taken Elianna away. He needed to see the so-called Alpha and demand answers. Now.
Overwhelmed by the tiger’s blood lust and eagerness to do battle, he lost his train of thought again. Leaping to the top of a boulder, he gave voice to all his frustrations and the sound echoed off the forest around him.
The scent of the Alpha caught his attention, and he broke off his battle cry, spinning in the blink of an eye to stare at the spot where the guard had been keeping solitary watch over him. When had these other people arrived?
I must have blacked out. Or at least the man’s mind did. Alarmed by the idea of blackouts with the tiger alone in control, Kierce crouched low to the boulder he was perched on, belly fur brushing the rough surface, and bared his fangs, not taking his eyes off the Alpha for an instant.
The constant swirling between the man’s rational mind, the drug-induced terrors and the tiger’s inchoate consciousness was making him physically ill. His legs trembled, and he considered resuming his mad sprints inside the force field, but his strength was sapped by his earlier exertions.
“How long has he been like this?” the Alpha asked the guard.
“He can be heard howling even in the community portions of the valley,” the woman who was the Alpha’s mate said. “The humans are becoming unsettled, worried about an unknown major predator in the vicinity. Of course, they have no idea we’re keeping him here. This is a Badari secret after all, pack business.”
“A little over an hour,” the soldier replied in answer to the Alpha’s question. “He was racing through the space, bouncing off the trees—he seemed crazy. Not scared, not angry, more like he couldn’t stay still. And then he jumped onto the rock and started vocalizing.”
“Any idea what set him off?” the woman asked.
The guard shook his head. “He was asleep in the sun over there and, the instant he woke up, he was sniffing the air like he was hunting and then he was literally off and running.”
“Well, we can’t leave him in this state.” The Alpha’s mate sounded sad for him and distressed.
Bring me Elianna! But his demand blasted from his mouth in the tiger’s yowl. Startling himself, Kierce remembered yet again he was in the four-footed form, and he nearly lost his balance. The only one he could go mind to mind with at all in the feline form was the Alpha and then only general impressions, not words.
“Should we stun him?” the guard asked, raising his weapon.
“No, I think being paralyzed would make matters worse.” The Alpha gazed across the expanse of leaf covered glade and captured Kierce’s attention.
“I can ask Megan to bring a super tranquilizer,” the mate said. “Although I don’t think anyone could get close enough to inject him. We’d have to rig a dart gun.”
Stomach heaving, Kierce leaned over the edge of his boulder and lost the remnants of his breakfast. Weak and dizzy, he knew he had to retreat into the tiger form completely or the drug flashback might kill him this time. He licked his chops and found his attention caught by the Alpha again. Once he’d locked eyes with the man, he was unable to look away, similar to the situation when the other Badari had broken into the cell block at the lab.
Peace, brother. Set aside your agitation, rest in the sun, and let the Great Mother restore your calm. The Alpha’s voice in his head was compelling, the message so simple he comprehended it as man and cat. The command made sense to both parts of him, although a tiny portion of the man’s mind rebelled at being forced to act against his will. Sleeping all day wasn’t going to retrieve Elianna from wherever they’d taken her. But, he had to admit, in his current state he’d be captured or killed within hours of escaping. If he could even climb the towering tree right now, which he doubted.
Weariness descended on him like a warm, heavy blanket and Kierce yawned. He slithered from the boulder with a loud scraping noise as his claws dragged on the rock and slunk toward the patch of sunlight the Alpha had indicated. The last few steps were accomplished on sheer willpower then he sank into the fragrant leaves, moss and wildflowers, eyes closing, mind shutting down.
Kierce slept.
CHAPTER TEN
Despite being warned she’d see nothing, Elianna was glued to the window as Gabe brought the flyer around the island and landed smoothly. The place was extremely desolate, with no beaches, only rocky cliffs and dense forests.
“The wind blows hard,” Walt said as Gabe joined them and the passengers prepared to debark. “And cold so you’d better put on the jacket and gloves you were issued. I’ll go first. We signaled ahead but I need to reassure the sentries.” He opened the ramp at the stern and strolled outside, out of view.
Elianna shivered as the breeze blew inside the shuttle. This place was cold and she was only too happy to bundle up as Walt suggested. A minute later, the soldier whistled and Gabe shepherded them out of the shuttle onto the landing pad where two Badari warriors waited.
“Camron and Brant,” Walt said, making a rapid introduction. “No trouble since our last visit.”
“Glad to hear the uneventful status,” Gabe said. “This is our best hope right here so the longer we can keep it hidden from the Khagrish, the better.”
“Not even a close flyby,” Camron said.
Elianna moved ahead of the others, staring at the ungainly Chimmer ship, sitting fins down on the flat bedrock. The vessel was several stories high, somewhat stubby with an odd middle section flaring out on both sides before tapering to a blunt nose. The metallic skin was pitted and dull. “The enemy doesn’t build for beauty, do they?”
“Of course we don’t know what a Chimmer considers beautiful ,” Lorrali said.
Laughing at the truth of the tech’s comment, Elianna drew a slash in the air with one gloved hand as if scoring a game. “Fair point. I don’t care much about the exterior anyway—let me at the interior.”
“Elianna’s a recent arrival to the valley,” Walt said to the two Badari. “She’s a ship’s engineer.”
Camron whistled. “Nice. Sorry for you, ma’am, to be on this planet, but we could use more good luck.”
As soon as she was allowed into the Chimmer ship, Elianna stripped off the bulky jacket and the gloves, placing them off to the side inside the hatch and made her way to the engine room, following the schematic MARL17 had shown her. She stood for several minutes in the center of the space, listening to the ship’s harmonics. The alien power source thrummed and hummed behind its protective barriers, ready to take the ship to the stars. Like the tech powering human interstellar vessels, the energy couldn’t be switched off or even reduced beyond a certain level of potency without decommissioning the entire ship and extracting the core.
Walt stuck his head in from the corridor. “You okay here? Need anything?”
She waved a hand at him absently as she studied the arrangement of equipment and the controls in front of her. “Peace and quiet. I need to be left alone for a while, go at my own pace, you know?”
“No problem. We’ll be on call if you need us.” He started to walk away.
“Oh, and hey if anyone found any manuals or tools, that’d be helpful,” she said, raising her voice.
“We did find a tool locker on the mid deck,” he said, pivoting on his heel. “It was in kind of a mess so we left the contents there. Apparently, the Chimmer aren’t into keeping their equipment shipshape and in good repair.”
“Good to know. No need to move whatever you found, I’ll get there eventually.” She’d prefer to see the ship and all the accouterments in the state the Chimmer had left things. Sometimes there were clues to be teased out from the association of items.
“I can give you access to the limited written material on the ship,” MARL17 said. “I have attempted translation of a few documents.”
She wondered if she and her ‘sidekick’ were always going to be on differing pages as far as what he could offer and what she needed. “Later, thanks. I’ll be able to make more sense of it if I’ve already examined the actual setup. There’ll be time enough later to compare the diagrams to the as-built or modified vessel.”
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