by blood wind
“Noll! Thorne! McGregor!” Kahn demanded. “On the pad!” He barely looked up as the three men did as they were told. He activated the transporter and sent them to the prison ship. “Vortex, I'm leading them away from the ship. How about bringing me on board at your earliest convenience?”
“Will consider your request, Sir.” Tealson Hesar chuckled. From his console, he watched Tylan Kahn execute a perfect rollout and veer sharply to port. “He hasn't lost his punches,” the Keeper remarked. He used the sleeve of his royal blue uniform shirt to wipe away the perspiration on his face. Glancing up as Raine joined him, Hesar grinned. “Think you can handle this for a moment?”
“I've been known to take a turn at the controls on occasion,” replied McGregor.
“I want to make sure Cree's all right,” Hesar told him.
By the time Kahn had led his pursers a safe distance from the Vortex and had beamed on board The Vortex, the pilotless runabout heading into deep space, Dr. Dean and her technicians were making Cree as comfortable as they could in the ship's sick bay. The Reaper was still unconscious, but his vital signs were stable.
“His parasite will be working over time to repair all this damage as quickly as possible,” Dr. Dayle remarked. She wiped away some of the dried blood from Cree's face. “Whoever did this certainly enjoyed themselves.”
“I would venture to say it was Lord Onar's men,” said Beryla Dean. She was laser stitching closed the tracheal incision made by the young Serenian nobleman now that Cree was breathing on his own.
Tealson Hesar walked up to the surgical table. He was relieved to see the Reaper's normal ruddy color had returned. “He'll be all right, won't he?”
“He's healing at a remarkable rate due to the parasitic intervention,” Dr. Dean acknowledged, “but I don't like the fact that he's still unconscious. He was without oxygen for a long time.”
Hesar frowned. “Why does that concern you, Lady?”
“There could be brain damage,” Dorrie answered for the Director.
The Keeper shook his head vehemently. “The parasite would not allow it.”
“How is he?” Tylan Kahn drew their attention as he came hurrying into the sick bay.
“As well as can be expected under the circumstances,” Dr. Dean reported. “It's a wait-and-see at this point.”
“Keep me informed,” Kahn said. He took one last look at Cree, and then cocked his head for Hesar to leave with him.
There were nine men on the flight deck of the prison ship Vortex: Admiral Tylan Kahn, Commander Tealson Hesar, Lieutenant Alexi Noll, Ensign Paegan Thorne, Sergeants André Arbra and Hern Belvoir, and the two Princes, Raine McGregor and Lares Taborn. In sick bay, there were six women: Doctors Beryla Dean, Amala Dayle, and Aurora Burds and technicians Dorrie Burkhart, Ivonne O'Malley and Tina Portas. In all, sixteen survivors making a run for their lives to avoid the plasma missiles aimed their way.
“No matter where we go in this galaxy, they'll follow,” Kahn was telling the men. “As long as they know Cree is alive, they'll keep coming.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Raine.
Kahn drew in a long breath, and then exhaled slowly. “We make for Terra.” Raine blinked. “Earth?”
Kahn shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
“You do not think they will follow us there, warthog?” snarled Lares.
Tylan Kahn slowly turned his head and glared at the dark man. “Don't call me that again or I can promise you I will have you jettisoned out one of the gods-be-damned air locks!”
Lares grinned. “Warthog,” he replied.
“Lares,” Raine sighed. “Now is not the time.”
“I can see a few problems with that plan, Admiral,” Hesar put in, wanting to postpone the confrontation every man there knew would take place between Kahn and Taborn.
“Let's hear them,” Kahn growled, snapping his attention away from the dark man.
“For one thing,” Hesar said, holding up his hand and counting the reasons on his fingers. “We need a cybot to fly this baby while we're in ES.”
“Make a run by FSK-14 and pick up Troilus,” Noll suggested. “Or get one off The Sirocco, Teal.” Hesar thought a moment. “Our ‘bot was off-line when we landed.” He looked worried. “What are our chances of snatching yours before we get blasted into dust?”
“Computer!” Noll snapped. “Status on C-051468/040771.”
The Vid-Com clicked on.
“One moment, Lieutenant.” After a five-second pause, the computer reported: “Cybot 051468/040771 is in hard stasis on board The Revenant.”
“Are there guards near The Revenant?”
“Negative, Lieutenant.”
“Is the cybot being monitored?”
“No, Sir.”
Noll exchanged a grin with Thorne. “Activate cybot 071468/040771 and have it ready for transport in 30 seconds.”
“Understood, Lieutenant.”
“Take us in range, Mr. Hesar,” Noll requested, “and we'll pluck Troi off the tree like an overripe lemon!” Thorne winced at the analogy. “By the gods, I hope he isn't carrying fruit blight, then!”
“A virus, you mean?” Lares grunted. At Thorne's nod, the Necromanian smiled. “I am very good at curing viruses.”
“A veritable whiz when it comes to computers,” pronounced Raine McGregor.
“Any more concerns, Tealson?” Admiral Kahn asked as the men prepared to fly over FSK-14 to retrieve the cybot.
“I'm sure there's enough hypersleep chambers aboard, but what about sustenance for Cree?” The other men paled. Noll looked up from his navigational console. “Sweet Merciful Alel,” he whispered. “There is none on board!”
“Then we'll have to make a run on the ancillary-”
“They will be expecting us to try that.” The Admiral shook his head. “We can't risk it.”
“We've a sick bay,” Thorne reminded them. “We'll just have to donate-” McGregor shook his head.
“Why not?” Thorne demanded.
“When he was on Hell-12 and had to have blood during Transition, the Healer wouldn't take it from anyone there, ” Raine explained. “She sent offworld for it.” He held up his hand, forestalling anyone's questions. “The reason she gave is that any blood a Reaper consumes is encrypted into his genetic makeup. It is bookmarked and stored for retrieval just as any data is. That is how a Reaper can find his target when he's on a termination mission. He's given a vial of the target's blood and he will home in on that scent.”
“So?”
“Under normal circumstances, I'd say that wouldn't be a problem because every man here is connected to him in a good way, but, now?” He shrugged. “He was without oxygen a long time. If he can't remember who we are and he goes into Transition and gets loose…”
“We can't keep him in the sick bay!” Kahn broke in. “We'd never be able to keep him there if he does cycle!”
“Then we have no choice but to place him in one of the containment cells,” Lares pointed out. “We will make him comfortable there.”
“That still doesn't solve the problem of sustenance for him,” Thorne reminded them. “If we can't donate and we can't lift it from FSK-14, what the hell do we do? Have any of you seen a Reaper in Transition?”
“I have,” Hesar said quietly, “and I don't care to see it again.”
“So what do we do?” Thorne demanded. “We can't let him suffer like that for two and half months. If he isn't…” He couldn't say the word ‘brain damaged'. “…hasn't been affected by the loss of oxygen, he'll be stark raving mad by the time we get to Terra!”
“There is an alternative,” Noll said quietly and everyone looked at him. The Keeper hesitated.
“Go on,” Kahn said.
Noll let out a long breath before saying: “There are the bodies.”
Kahn looked as though he might throw up. He stared at Noll, swallowed convulsively, and then tore his eyes from the man. The others were as revolted by the suggestion and shocked silence set
tled like a blanket over the flight deck. For a long time, no one said anything, but each of their thoughts centered on the thirty corpses that still rested in the cargo bay.
“Can he…” Lares cleared his throat, tried again, although he, himself, felt acutely nauseous. “Can he eat…” He fanned out his hands, waved them in circles, unable to finish. “You know,” he finished lamely.
“I believe the word is carrion,” Belvoir supplied and looked ill as well.
Kahn flinched at the word and felt bile rush up his throat. He sat down at the Captain's console and put his hand over his mouth.
“As I said, it is a consideration,” Noll told them.
“There is no…” Kahn swallowed. “…blood in…” He gagged and had to stop.
“Not fresh blood,” Noll agreed, “but dried blood has…”
“Please!” Thorne insisted, looking green.
“I don't like the thought of it anymore than you do, Paegan,” Noll snapped, “but what choice do we have?”
“None,” Dr. Dean said and the men looked around at her. “I would suggest if you are planning on putting Cree where he can not harm us, you do it now. He is waking.”
“Admiral?” Noll questioned.
Tylan Kahn looked at the Keeper, considered him for a moment. “Tylan,” he corrected. “There is no need for a Chief of Space Fleet Ops, now.”
“All right, Tylan,” Noll said. “What do you suggest we do?”
Kahn squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then made up his mind. “We move the bodies to the containment cells.”
****
TROILUS PEEKED through the Siliplex window of the main room of the containment cell holding facility. It put its hands on the wall to either side of the rectangle. “'My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd; And I myself see not the bottom of it.'” When there was no answer to his words, the cybot banged its head on the glass. “'Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?'”
Cree looked up from the place where he knelt on the floor. A sad smile touched his lips. “Perhaps he's dead in his own mind, Troi,” he answered quietly.
“'These words are razors to my heart,'” Troilus sighed.
“How are the others?”
The cybot laid its head on the Siliplex. “'The rest is silence,'” he reported, having injected the other travelers with hypersleep.
Cree stood and walked to the secured door of the holding facility. “Did they find my lady?” Troilus shook its head. “'O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?'”
Deep, abiding hurt flitted through Cree's eyes. “He has her, Troi.”
“'The day will come when thou shalt wish for me to help thee curse this pois'nous hunch-backed toad,'” the cybot declared.
“I'll do more than curse him,” Cree swore. He pushed away from the door and slid down the wall to sit with his legs splayed out. “Go back on deck,” he commanded. “I'm all right.” He looked out over the bodies lying in the containment cells and hung his head.
“'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances,' ” the cybot reminded him.
“Aye, and there is no greater sin to be committed but than to defile the dead,” answered Cree.
Troilus made an almost human sound, its voice a whimper of pain. “'Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?'”
Cree flinched. He looked down at his hands, saw the nails elongating, the coarse fur sprouting from the backs of his hands.
“No,” he whispered.
“'If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly,'” Troilus warned him.
“Find my lady,” Cree snarled. “Go, Troi. Find her! I can smell her blood. We're not that far away.” The cybot stood for a moment longer at the window, then, turned. “'The attempt and not the deed confounds us,'” it replied.
A long, low snarl came from the Reaper. He dug his claws into the holes of the corrugated metal floor and refused to acknowledge the scent of the bodies only a few feet away. His hunger was immense and his thirst a desert in his mouth. He tried to settle his mind on the words he had heard when he was being carried to this hellish place. Only partially awake, he had been unable to speak, to ask questions, but he knew where he was. His psychic mind had probed the ether and found another even more powerful mind at work. He had heard the man's words, but it was his unfettered thoughts that had stayed with Cree.
“You said there was another survivor,” Thorne questioned. “Who is it?”
“Konnor Rhye.”
They allowed the sonofabitch to live!
Even in his semi-conscious state, that gods-be-damned evil name had penetrated Cree's mind like a poisonous dart.
“Could that be why we didn't find her?”
“They sent him to get her. I have to assume he did.”
There's no doubt in my mind he took her!
The words had made no sense in his scrambled thoughts, but the powerful psychic mind that was not bothering to block out its signals gave Cree all the information he needed: The Resistance had set Rhye free and he had taken Bridget.
“Where would he have taken her?”
“I have no idea.”
Earth, where else?
Aye, Cree thought. If he were Rhye, that would be where he would run.
Savage, brutal hunger was driving him insane. He had been in this fiendish place for three days now as the rest of the ship went into Extended Sleep, but he had refused to consider doing what Kahn had obviously intended he do to stay alive. Even now, more beast than human, he would not.
“Bridget,” he sighed with the last sound his human throat could speak. When he tried to say her name again, only an animalistic growl came from his leathery lips. He threw back his head and howled: misery and intense longing making the sound pitiable.
“He won't hurt her, will he?” Thorne had asked.
“I hope not.”
He'd better not!
Cree knew that wherever Rhye had taken her, she would be safe with him. The man loved her, of that much Cree could be sure. The Keeper would give his life for her and, once, almost had. No harm would come to Cree's mate, but the Keeper would lie with her. He would eventually mate with her and it was that thought that brought on another prolonged howl of agony.
“He'll kill Rhye,” Thorne had stated.
“He's got to survive this trip first,” Kahn had replied.
And there is only one way for him to do that, the gods help him!
I will find Konnor Rhye, Cree thought with the last electrical impulses in his brain that were still human. I will find him and I will drain him dry!
But I have to survive first.
His red-glowing eyes shifted beneath thick brows to the bodies and held.
Chapter 27
KONNOR RHYE felt the hand on his throat and slowly opened his eyes. The sight that greeted his arousal from ES brought a shriek of fear from his lips. His hands shot up to pry at the horny flesh grasping his neck and he felt hot urine spreading across the seat of his torn uniform trousers. His larynx was being crushed in the grip of the monster bending over his E.S.U.; oxygen could not get past the tight restriction, turning his face blue. Sharp claws were gouging into his carotid arteries and he felt the warmth of his own blood gushing down his throat, pooling beneath his head. As the monster grinned at Konnor Rhye, opening it's maw to reveal row upon row of sharp, glittering teeth advancing toward his face, Rhye sat bolt upright in his E.S.U., screeching like a wounded animal.
“A dream,” he whispered, shivering violently. “Just a dream.”
There was no need to wonder whom the monster stalking his dream had been. Konnor sat rigid inside his E.S.U., his heart thundering in his chest, sweat dripping down his temples, his body shuddering as though he were in the sub -arctic climes of Serenia.
“Just a dream.”
A dream or a portent?
“No,” he said firmly
. “Just a dream.”
At least he hoped and prayed it had been merely a subconscious thought left circulating in his past.
One last hard shudder waved through his body and he reached up a shaking hand to wipe at the sweat beading his face. Had he a mirror, he was sure he would see a ghastly pale visage staring back at him with fearful, haunted eyes.
“He's dead,” Rhye muttered to himself, disengaging the side panel of the clear Siliplex E.S.U. so he could swing his legs out.
“He's dead.”
The litany was not as comforting as he wished it to be and shuddered again.
Rhye walked to Bridget's E.S.U. and was surprised to find the cover was still engaged and her sleeping soundly. But soon, the drug he had used to place her in Extended Sleep would leave her system and she would awaken, just as he had. Obviously, they were very close to the Terran star else he would not have been awakened by the ship's monitoring system.
He stared down at her for a moment, taking in the fragile beauty of her face and frowned. There were dirty streaks down her cheeks and he knew but one cause for that: tears.
But not tears for him, he reminded himself grimly. The tears had been for Cree.
“Cree,” Rhye spat, his lips pealing back over his teeth.
Even the name was loathsome to Konnor Rhye; an abomination that had needed to be eradicated. Thank the gods the Resistance had done just that.
Or had they?
“Gods-be-damned hell!” Rhye snarled, irritated at himself that the thought of Cree coming after them would not leave him alone.
An unbidden, niggling worry started in Rhye's brain and would not be ignored: What if Cree had somehow survived? If he had escaped the hanging, the Reaper would come after his woman.
“His woman,” Rhye growled.
Bridget belonged to him, not to Cree. She had been destined to be his bride; not Cree's concubine.
A warning chime sounded from the ship's console and Rhye turned, his forehead crinkling with concern. Walking to the console, he was stunned to see a light flashing on the proximity screen.
“What the hell?” he gasped, sliding into the console seat and engaging the computer, typing in a query concerning the warning:
