“Doubtful. But I can screw up a lot of signals. Anyone bothering to look at screens will see that the bay doors are damaged and the bay is empty and open to vacuum.” Kim began working away at the touch screen.
Within a few moments, the line of desperate people fled the corridor, seeking another escape. Loki heard cries of dismay. They pushed and shoved each other ruthlessly. One small woman had trouble turning and moving with the flow. A heavy duffel bag on her shoulder already overbalanced her.
“Out of my way, SB,” a squarely built man with a blind justice insignia on the collar and cuff of his black uniform snarled. He had a prow of a nose beneath black hair and beady eyes. “I’ll have your stripes for blocking my way. I’m the judge. I ordered this evacuation. Now everyone out of my way. No one gets off this boat until I do.” He shoved the woman viciously, slamming her into a bulkhead.
Her head smacked against the cerama/metal walls. The judge did not even look back at her. Blood trickled down the side of her face.
The crowd ignored her. They stepped around her. One slight man tromped on her sprawled legs trying to get out of the way of a bigger man.
Loki bit his lip. He gulped hard. She needed help. He should go to her. He didn’t have time. She was not his responsibility.
Hestiia prodded his back. “We have to get going. She is the enemy. Not our concern,” she said.
“I can’t just leave her.”
Loki’s stomach sank. He had to obey his conscience after all.
Kat looked up at the thick cloud cover. A raindrop plopped onto her cheek. Then another struck her eye. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision.
“Nacring Nebulae!” she cursed. “First they abandon me. Then they kidnap me. Now they’ve stranded me in the middle of the bush in the middle of a rainstorm with only a primitive iron knife.”
She turned slowly, trying to get her bearings. Which way led back to the village where her crew-mates had landed?
Thick clouds obscured the sun’s position. She’d never find north without help.
“I don’t dare strike out on my own.” She almost wept. “I don’t even know which direction to go, even if I knew which direction to take.”
She clenched her fist around the hilt of the weapon. The chunk of horn hacked from some poor animal warmed under her touch, seemed to mold to her grip. She stared at it a moment.
“Well, if you want to work, best we get started.” She clamped her mouth shut on the last words. “What am I doing, talking to an inanimate object. A knife, by St. Bridget. A bloody knife.”
The barbaric weapon did not answer her. Of course it wouldn’t. She hadn’t expected it to. She just needed to hear the sound of her own voice to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming. That wasn’t stepping over the line into insanity.
Was it?
Insanity? She’d invoked a saint she had not thought about since early childhood. Governor Talbot—Dad—had followed a different faith from her birth mother. She no longer believed in saints and miracles, or dragons and unicorns. She believed in her own hard work and intelligence.
Surely she could tame one wild clearing in the middle of nowhere long enough to give herself shelter and some food.
Her stomach growled. “Why didn’t I bother with lunch before those barbarians invaded my ship?” she moaned.
(Because you were too excited at the prospect of meeting your family to eat.)
“Who said that?” Kat turned rapidly, scanning the clearing for intruders. She kept her knife at the ready. It balanced easily in her hand. She saw no one to use the weapon on. Not even a small rodent that might become dinner.
Then she shuddered at her primitive thoughts. No matter how desperate, she would not succumb to killing an animal, taking a life, merely to serve her noisy stomach. Maybe if she missed a meal or two a few of the extra inches on her hips would dissolve.
(You must eat to keep your energy and your mind at peak functioning.)
“Who is hiding in the bushes?” she demanded. She charged a large clump of greenery slashing with the knife. She bounced against flimsy branches. Her weapon embedded in the trunk. As she wrenched it free, she kept looking over her shoulder for the speaker.
A low chuckle came from behind her.
She whipped around, brandishing the knife. Nothing. No one. He had sounded so close.
Who?
Maybe she was going insane. People stranded on bush planets did that.
Maybe she was only hungry. Konner had said something about the bulb of a plant with yellow flowers, down by the creek.
Where in the frocking black hole was the creek?
(Listen.)
Sound advice. Her brain must be working properly and her imagination only put voice to it. A bright tenor voice. Too high to be one of her brothers. Too slow and drawling to be one of her shipmates.
She stood still and listened to the clearing. Birds chirping. Insects buzzing. Wind and rain. Grass growing. Trees reaching out with gratitude for the moisture . . .
“Stop that!”
Another low chuckle.
Then she heard it, beneath the other sounds, a soft ripple of water, faster than the dripping rain, gentler than the wind. She headed toward the sound.
Her nose worked in wonder. Gone was the citrus smell that permeated ships and domed cities. Green growth, falling leaves, sap from a softer wood, and the faint musk of an animal in rut flooded her senses. And over it all she inhaled the clean scent of vibrant life.
Her skin prickled from the cooler air. She rubbed her arms for warmth. The ground beneath her feet became spongy and descended at a gentle angle. Kat pushed aside drooping ferns. One of the fronds sliced her palm. She jumped back startled. Then she stared in fascinated horror at the drops of blood welling up from the wound.
A string of curses escaped her.
(Suck it,) the voice in the back of her mind suggested.
She knew she should. Enzymes in her own saliva would begin the clotting and healing process. But the thought of tasting blood sent waves of revulsion through her. All of them knotted in her stomach.
If only she had a med kit she could spray the wound with a cooling gel that would clean and disinfect as well as seal it. Cool. She needed something cold to slow the bleeding. Then pressure and elevation.
(The creek.) This time the voice coaxed as if dealing with a small child.
In the bush she was an infant.
Not quite an infant. She’d taken shore leave on bush planets before. She’d aced three advanced survival courses. St. Bridget, she’d been born and raised in the bush. She knew what to do.
Always before, she’d had the option of an emergency beacon and extraction if she became overwhelmed, or hurt, or ill. Not here. Not now. She had to think and act in her own defense.
“The creek it is. I just hope I don’t get infected with some exotic bacteria that causes my flesh to rot and slough off, leaving me a living skeleton.”
(Hardly.)
She was getting used to the voice now.
Avoiding the ferns and placing her feet carefully, she descended a few more steps to find a wide pool fed by a small waterfall and draining by a narrow defile into another steeper fall. She plunged her hand into the pond. Cool water soothed the slight burn of the wound. After a few moments she lifted it free of the gently lapping water. Several moments passed and only a few beads of blood appeared. Satisfied, she looked for something to press against the wound.
All she could find was her trouser leg. Dared she risk getting her hand dirty again on her grubby uniform? Captain Leonard was finicky about uniforms. Kat followed her example and never allowed anything to mar the sharp crease on her trousers or the grime to show. Instantly, she felt grubby and itchy. The rain did nothing to cleanse her of the sensations. Surely kidnap and stranding in the bush offered an adequate excuse for a less than pristine uniform.
She pressed her palm against her thigh. What was one more stain? Still she wanted a bath and a clean uniform. NOW.
“I’m as bad as a dome breather,” she admonished herself. “This isn’t building a shelter or providing me with fuel.”
She looked for yellow flowers. Three stalks of them to her left drooped under the weight of the rain. A few thrusts of the knife loosened the soil at their base. She tugged them free. Sure enough a fat bulb grew at the end of each plant.
She shook off loose dirt. Too much remained. Back to the pool. She had to kneel in the muck at the edge, further staining her uniform. After swishing the knife and vegetation in the water, some splotches of soil and rotting vegetation clung to both. Nothing for it but to use her hands to scrub.
A little pressure from her fingers cleared off any remaining debris. She let her hands linger in the soothing water. Not as cold as she expected. The feeder creek looked like it cascaded straight down the nearest mountain glacier. It should numb her skin by now.
“Hot springs?” she asked the air.
No answering voice, just a sensation of a nod of agreement.
She’d have to remember the hot spring when the rain chilled her to the bone.
“A fire. Konner said I could start a fire by sparking a rock off the knife blade.” If there was any wood dry enough to burn.
Cautiously, she broke a path back to the clearing, being careful to avoid the fronds of the plant she named saber ferns. Beneath some of the taller shrubs she spotted small twigs and branches that had broken off in an earlier season. These she gathered. By the time she made one full circuit of the clearing, she had an armload of bigger branches.
“Now if only I can remember the formation for the most efficient fire.” She’d aced the classes on survival. As she’d aced all of her classes and graduated a year early. So why had what she had learned about fires slid out of her brain like hot grease poured down a drain?
“What good was it to finish at the top of two classes and be denied assignment for years?” she muttered the old grief. Flying admin touch screens for four years while training on every vessel in the fleet and earning graduate degrees did not advance her career. Space time alone granted promotions. Well, she had some space time now and look where it got her. Stranded on a bush planet by her own flesh and blood.
“I’ll get you for this, Brothers O’Hara. One way or another I’ll see all three of you mind-wiped or dead.” Resolutely, she set about stacking her wood. When she ran out of fuel, she sat back on her heels and admired her construct. Text book construction. But would it work?
(May I light this for you?)
Kat looked up and stared straight into the swirling eyes of a red-tipped dragon, steam trailing from its nostrils, teeth longer than her knife blade dripping with saliva.
She fainted.
CHAPTER 35
LOKI GRABBED the latch. He had to help the trampled crew woman. The rest of the mission had to wait. Hestiia followed him into the corridor, right on his heels. She stared about anxiously as Loki stooped to touch the stranger’s neck.
Her pulse beat strong, if a little too fast. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Let me help you up,” he said quietly, hoping for a soothing tone. He checked her insignia and name tag at the same time.
She opened her eyes and gasped. Her eyes threatened to roll up in another faint.
“I won’t hurt you. My word of honor,” Loki protested. He grasped her elbow and lifted her.
She scrambled to pull away from him.
“SB Lee, compose yourself,” he ordered.
She nodded at his authoritative tone, blinking her almond-shaped eyes rapidly and chewing on her thick lower lip. Then her expression brightened.
A lone straggler hastened down the corridor, checking monitors every ten paces. He had a duffel matching SB Lee’s slung over his shoulder.
Lee shrugged off Loki’s helping hand and rushed to the newcomer’s side. Jabbering explanations, they turned away from Loki and Hestiia. They seemed more interested in finding an escape vessel than reporting the presence of intruders.
Loki breathed a sigh of relief.
When the IMP couple disappeared around the curve, Loki led his troops toward the center of the ship.
They made good progress in the outer level. As they climbed, gravity lessened. At first the bushies smiled and bounded from corridor to corridor. They hopped and rebounded, delighted with the lessening gravity.
The next set of stairs upward gave them all fits until Loki got behind and pushed everyone and the sleds up. Then the fun began. All seven of Loki’s charges began bouncing off bulkheads, ceilings, decks. They abandoned their sleds in order to experiment with the novelty of micro gravity.
Normally reserved and thoughtful, Hestiia turned a double somersault in midair. She quickly learned that she could increase her speed by grasping her knees and tucking her head.
Poolie walked delicately upside down. She took small, mincing steps and managed to maintain her orientation.
Niveean, a stout and seasoned warrior, lost his lunch in a cross corridor.
Loki stood back and watched for several minutes. As much as he wanted to rush to finish his job, he knew his helpers needed time to learn to move without the anchor of gravity and the orientation of a horizon. A few moments of play now might save them an hour of mishaps later when the sleds were laden with precious crystals.
Two dozen IMPs jogged toward them. At fifteen meters’ distance, they stopped abruptly and brought their weapons to bear. Counter-grav equipment gave them stability in the .3g sector.
Loki gulped.
“State your business, bushie,” the sergeant spat. His voice sounded a lot like one of his weapons would when he pulled the trigger.
“We’re crew, in native disguise. Deep cover. We’re salvaging for dirtside survival. Commander Leonard’s orders,” Loki returned. He refrained from saluting.
“Command code?”
Loki spat back the data stream he’d gleaned from Kat’s mind. The one that opened the launch bay doors.
The sergeant nodded abruptly and signaled his men forward. They pushed past Loki and his natives, weapons shouldered.
At least some semblance of military discipline remained, even if it was lax. Leonard should have changed the command codes.
“You’ll never be experts, but I think you can manage in null g now.” Loki called his group together. “Follow me, move cautiously. Remember the bounce is strong. Keep your movements small and slow.”
They had a few mishaps on the journey inward. The sleds did not want to move straight, especially up stairs. Niveean never did find a firm orientation and retched three more times before they reached the crystal room. He continued to plow forward, a small measure of the courage bred into him by centuries of warfare. A warrior endured pain and privation in order to protect his honor and those he held dear.
The chaos of the IMPs fleeing a sinking ship looked organized compared to the mess in the crystal room. Six techs flew, literally, from crystal to terminal to workbench and back again. They rebounded expertly into proper trajectories, grasping familiar handholds to brake or redirect their flight. Fiber optics, cables, and tools trailed in their wake, presenting hazards to the unwary. One woman worked frantically at a terminal trying to become the king stone for this array. The expression on her face showed the strain of thinking and entering commands at speeds beyond normal human capability.
Hestiia watched them with her mouth half open. Awe brightened her countenance.
Twelve beautifully clear, green crystals dominated the room, each a meter high, bigger around than a blacksmith’s well-muscled upper arm, and sharply faceted. The bright glow of life had burned low in their cores. Unless their connection to a king stone was restored soon, they would die. Loki had to get them back to the clearing quickly and reconnect them as a family.
“If you are trying to stabilize Jupiter’s orbit, your job is futile,” Loki announced to the techs.
“Fearsome Kahli!” one exclaimed. “It’s him again.”
“The O’Hara,” stated ano
ther.
“Stinking bushie!”
At the last insult, anger burned Loki’s cheeks. Every one of the men and women in their ugly khaki coveralls had the short, compact stature of civils, civilized citizens of the GTE. Sonic bathers. Dome breathers.
“I’ll have you know that I bathe every day in real water with soap,” he replied coldly. He could not give in to the temper that demanded he lash out with fists and feet. Too much depended upon getting the crystals safely back to the clearing.
Loki moved to the first driver crystal. Konner had disconnected them. The stones would not lash out with burning energy if disturbed. He twisted the first one and lifted it out of its socket. Tens of meters of fiber-optic cable attached to it tangled between the stone and its designated computer interface.
“Stop that. You’re killing the ship!” A tech tried to pull the green crystal from Loki’s grasp.
“That is the idea, odiferous civil. This ship will crash and you and your mates will be stranded dirtside forever,” he snarled. He jerked to his left, pulling the stone away from the tech. The abrupt movement sent him spinning.
Niveean stopped Loki with a strong hand.
The tech hit the bulkhead. His head slammed against the unforgiving walls with a sickening thud.
“Techs, take care of your buddy. Time for you to join the rest of the rats fleeing this ship,” Loki ordered.
If a person could scuttle in null g, the techs managed to give that appearance as they hastened to take one of their own to the nearest medical facility.
Loki gently placed the crystal on the sled. The fiber optics tangled and coiled around his feet.
“May I assist?” Hestiia asked. Even before he could answer, she began separating the fiber optics at the source.
In a remarkably short time, Hestiia had untangled the cables as if working with a very fragile yarn.
The woman at the terminal continued her futile task, never looking up. Every micron of her attention belonged to her task.
Would she even notice when her green crystals left the array and she had nothing left to command?
The Dragon Circle Page 27
