by Mina Carter
“And you think you’re good enough, do you?” Rynn stepped forward. Pressure on the trigger of the rifle told him that D’Corr had a suppression field set up. He threw the useless weapon to the side and pulled the blade out of his boot. It was going to be down and dirty with daggers, just the way he liked it. “She means nothing to me. Makes no difference, though, because you’re living in a fantasy if you think you’re better than I am.” He pointed to the unmarked side of D’Corr’s face with the tip of his dagger. “How about I make that side match?”
“You fucking draanthic!” D’Corr snarled. “I’m going to fucking gut you and feed your entrails to the jaanarisis.”
With that he launched himself at Rynn with a bellow. The fight was fast and furious. For all his failings, Araal D’Corr was an excellent warrior. So much so, that at one point he’d been considered a shadow.
Rynn kept his wits about him, making sure to focus on the moment as he blocked blow after blow, twisting and turning as he returned the favor. His blade danced through the air, fending off D’Corr’s in metallic crashes as he looked for something… the tiniest opening in D’Corr’s guard he could capitalize on and break through.
But D’Corr was fast and mean. He hammered Rynn’s defenses, managing to break through a block on his left side. His dagger flashed out, coming away red with blood. Rynn hissed as he backed up, fire tracing lines of agony over his side. He glanced down. Sure enough, a thin red line decorated his rib cage.
“Tsk, tsk,” D’Corr chided, spinning the bloodied knife over the back of his hand. “Getting slow, shadow. Your poor little female, with such a weak male to protect her. Perhaps I won’t kill her myself. I know a Krin who would pay handsomely to taste her flesh.”
That did it. The mere thought of Jac being handed over to a Krin, who would keep her alive as it feasted from her body, broke the dam on his control and he saw red. With a bellow of rage, he threw himself at D’Corr. His attack was a blur of movement, each blow driven by fury. D’Corr staggered back under the onslaught, his eyes widening in panic as he tried to block Rynn. But it was no good, he wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t good enough.
Rynn spotted the opening almost before it happened. Slamming a hard leg into D’Corr’s side, he pulled back as the male staggered, but instead of following up, he dropped to the floor, twisting as he went. The dagger in his hand flashed in the overhead lighting, the lethal edge of the blade glittering as it sliced through the air under D’Corr’s block and buried itself with a fleshy “thunk” into the center of his chest. Just under the heart.
Rynn grinned, the expression savage and without mercy, and twisted the blade. D’Corr’s lifeblood gushed over his hand like a waterfall, the warrior turning pale. Rynn let go of the hilt, and D’Corr staggered backward, hands around the blade embedded in his chest.
One knee went out from under him as Jac ran to Rynn’s side, and he laughed at the two of them. “You might have defeated me, Shadow,” he spat the title like a curse. “But you’ll never get off this ship alive.”
The last words had barely left his lips before he collapsed to the floor, sightless eyes staring upward and the deck plates around him turning scarlet with his lifeblood.
“Come on,” Rynn ordered, grabbing Jac’s hand and running for the shuttle. “We’ve got to get off this ship.”
“In.”
Rynn shoved her ahead of him into the shuttle, his movements rough. Hearing the stress in his voice, Jac didn’t argue. She just ducked under the hull and hurried up the ramp as quickly as she could. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She glanced back, a sigh of relief escaping her at the familiar sight of Lizzie’s blue tube still in place at the back of the cabin. They hadn’t moved or hurt her.
“Sit.” The big alien pushed her toward the copilot’s seat, sliding into place next to her, his hands already moving over the console. Everywhere he touched, systems came to life. Jac didn’t move. She didn’t know enough about how the ship worked to help, and the hard look in Rynn’s eyes since they’d woken said he didn’t trust her.
“Keris. Talk to me,” he ordered.
Behind them the ramp snapped shut, the shuttle already moving to lift off. She squeaked as it turned abruptly, the sudden movement making her slide. The seat was designed for someone much bigger. Her hands curled around the armrests in a rictus grip as she tried to keep herself in place. Something slapped against her shoulder, metal rolling down across her body as the safety harness pinned her in place. She turned her head to watch the same thing happen to Rynn, the big man barely batting an eyelid as the ship secured them.
The shuttle jerked again and she heard the engines starting to roar. It was almost as if Rynn’s panic had spread to the ship itself. Then Keris spoke.
“Ship self-destruct activated.” The AI’s voice was short and to the point. “D’Corr had a subroutine attached to his vital signs. When they ceased… sneaky, so draanthing sneaky.”
“He was dishonored. What do you expect? Override it,” Rynn ordered, and with a wave of his hands, the view on the main screen altered. The shuttle bay doors loomed ahead of them, slowly opening. Jac gasped as Rynn gunned the engines and they hurtled forward. The gap wasn’t anywhere near big enough for something the size of the Keris…
She slammed her eyes shut, a sound of pure terror escaping her lips as she was shoved back in her seat. There wasn’t enough room… They were going to be splattered all over the inside of the shuttle bay. And she didn’t want to die. Not yet. Not before Rynn had forgiven her.
The ship jerked suddenly to the side, and her head smacked into the side of the headrest. Then they righted again, the rapid movements making her feel sick as she was thrown about in the seat. Daring to open her eyes, she looked at the screen again. Space lay in front of them, the glorious spread of stars the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Can’t override it.” Keris spoke again and even Jac could hear the concern in her voice. “They’ve got a B’Karr coded lockout. Draanth!” the AI swore. “And a fucking Queshikall!”
Jac felt the temperature drop in the cabin as Rynn’s expression froze. “A what? What’s a Queshikall?”
He slid her a sideways glance. “A bomb. A fucking big one. Big enough to take out at least a couple of galactic sectors.”
She laughed uneasily. “Please tell me a galactic sector is like… this big?” She held up her thumb and forefinger a couple of inches apart.
Rynn’s lips curved into a small smile, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “I wish. It’ll take out all the neighboring systems and cause a singularity.”
“A singularity?” She frowned. “Like a black hole?”
“Exactly.” Rynn’s expression was grim as he concentrated on the charts flowing over the screen in front of them. She didn’t need him to explain what she was seeing. Simulations of the ship behind them exploding, the shockwave swallowing all the planets nearby and their small ship, before collapsing in on itself. “We can’t outrun it.”
Jac’s heart stalled in her chest, ice in her veins. This was real. They were doing to die.
She half turned in her seat to look at Lizzie’s stasis tube. Desperate. They might be a lost cause but perhaps they could help her.
“Is there any way we can save Lizzie? A probe or something?” she asked, thinking rapidly. “In sci-fi films on Earth they often saved the hero or heroine by removing the innards of a missile. Shoot her away from the blast at high speed, and she might be able to outrun it?”
He shot her a look like she’d suddenly sprouted two heads. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’d never fit in a missile and a probe wouldn’t be able to sustain her stasis field long enoug—”
“No. She’s onto something,” Keris broke in. “Not a probe or missile. We can’t outrun the blast as we are, even at top speed. But if the Dena’vius heads the other way at top speed…” The simulations in the screen in front of them altered. But this time, instead of the blast swallowing their little ship whole, they rode th
e front edge of the wave. “…then it would work.”
“But to escape the blast, we’d need to hit max speed. You’d lose the remote uplink long befor…” He stopped, realization flooding his features. “You’re not coming with us.”
There was a long silence.
“No,” the AI admitted. “I need to be on the D’Corr ship.”
Rynn dragged in a shuddering breath, hands on the console and his head bent. Jac’s heart ached for him. It was obvious he and the ship had a bond.
“When?” he asked.
“I’m already there,” Keris said softly. “Goddess protect you, Xaandrynn, son of Xaandril, in this life and the next. If she wishes, maybe we’ll meet again in a different life.”
There were no tears. Rynn’s expression was clear and calm as he lifted his head even though Jac knew it had to cost him. Instead, he just nodded, accepting Keris’ decision to sacrifice herself. “I will pray that we do. Goddess protect you, Keris, in this life and the next.”
The words were formal ones, ones that obviously held great meaning for the Lathar. Jac stayed silent then, “Thank you, Keris,” she said softly.
“You’re very welcome, Jac Wright of Earth. Look after him for me, please?”
“I will. I promise.”
The AI’s voice changed, became clipped and businesslike. “Ten kilasecs to detonation.”
Then there were no words. Instead, Rynn pushed the engines and the screen in front of them became a mass of streaming stars as Keris counted down, her voice becoming more and more scattered with static. The shuttle screamed, everything shaking, and Jac squeezed her eyes shut. Even if the blast didn’t kill them, the shuttle ripping itself apart might.
A massive boom obliterated reality, so loud she felt it down to her very bones. Whiteness filled her eyes, blanking her vision and hearing. She couldn’t see anything, hear anything, feel anything. For long moments she lay, suspended in the white nothingness, then…
The world returned with a pop. She gasped, finding herself sitting next to Rynn in the copilot’s seat. His expression was as surprised as hers as he looked at her and then back at the console.
“Goddess,” he gasped, hands already flying over the keys to bring up a view of the surrounding space. There was no black hole. No destroyed systems. In fact, everything was the same as it had been before. Apart from one small detail.
The D’Corr ship had totally vanished.
Chapter Twelve
After setting the bearing for Lathar Prime and engaging the autopilot, Rynn pushed off from the command chair and made his way to the back of the Ker— no, he couldn’t call it the Keris’tial anymore. With the AI, with Keris gone, it was just an ordinary shuttle.
He sat down heavily on the bed and shoved his hands into his hair. It even felt different in here. Like metal. Not alive. The overhead lights seemed duller and he couldn’t bring himself to look at the command console, knowing the lights on the AI housing would be out.
Keris had been with him since he was little more than a boy, the one time being a hero champion’s son had given him any benefit. He’d turned what was an expensive toy into a playmate, and then a companion, and finally a partner, having Keris upgraded and moved into each ship he’d obtained.
They’d trained together, worked together. Confided in each other. She’d been his secret backup plan for the most dangerous missions and he’d always missed her comforting presence when he’d had to go in solo. He’d come to see her as more than just a ship, more than just an AI. Like he knew her greatest desire was to have a body and she knew he feared always being seen as less because of his birth.
He firmly believed she’d achieved true sentience and a soul. A belief borne out by the fact she’d sacrificed herself for him and Jac without a second thought.
And now she was gone. His oldest friend. No, closer than that. Closer than a lover even. She had been the sister of his soul, if not flesh and blood. And she was gone.
The soft scuff of a footstep caught his attention and he looked up as Jac sat on the bed next to him.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said softly, her hand on his arm.
He nodded but didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to talk.
Instead, he turned and pulled her into his arms, straddling his lap. She was soft and warm against him, her curves fitting against the hardness of his warrior’s body as he held her, his face buried in the soft warmth of her hair.
She let him, nestling against him as her fingers stroked the nape of his neck gently, comforting him with her touch. She let him when he started to kiss her neck, exploring the soft skin there. She let him when he lay back on the bed, turning over to pin her beneath him. And she let him when he stripped her clothes from her body and parted her thighs.
He didn’t talk, didn’t want to talk or think as he took her. Hard and fast, and then slow and leisurely. Anything to avoid thinking about his loss… instead, he lost himself in physicality, bringing the little human female to pleasure again and again until her cries filled the shuttle and she begged him to take her. But all through it, part of him wasn’t there, part of him couldn’t connect. It was as though he were merely a spectator, watching himself from far away.
Perhaps that was better, he thought, hours later when Jac was asleep in his arms. Despite what he’d thought, Jac wasn’t his to keep. As soon as they reached Lathar Prime, he would hand her over to the emperor and request a new mission.
Get back into the action. Go back into the shadows… where he belonged.
The next morning Rynn barely spoke to her. Worse, he barely even looked her way. Dressed like the Lathar warriors she was so used to seeing on the news, half his hair was braided up and away from his face in multitudes of little plaits. She wanted to ask what they were, and what the beads on the end of the braids meant but she daren’t. Not with the hard look he wore. Despite the fact he’d taken her over and over last night, and she’d fallen asleep in his arms, he wouldn’t even look at her.
Instead of talking, she curled up silently in the chair next to his, her arms around her knees and tried not to look as miserable as she felt. Her clothes were grubby, she needed a hot shower and about a week’s sleep. Worse, all she wanted to do was burst into tears. Which she absolutely would not do. Not in front of him. Not now.
By the time he announced they were entering the orbit of Lathar Prime, her nerves were stretched to breaking point. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk, but she had to try.
“Rynn. Could we—” she started in an attempt to clear the air, but he cut her off with a sharp move of his hand.
“Shut up,” he ordered. “This isn’t as easy as it looks without an AI on board.”
Her heart sank. Whatever they’d had between them was over. In her heart she’d known it last night. It wasn’t the same. There had been no emotion behind his eyes. Like he was just going through the motions. A purely physical release.
She rubbed her stomach, feeling ill. He blamed her for Keris’ death. It was her fault they’d been on the D’Corr ship in the first place. Which meant it was her fault they’d almost died. Keris had died because of her. And she knew Rynn would never forgive her for it.
She didn’t try and talk again, closing her eyes as Rynn spoke to someone in what she assumed was Latharian. She didn’t understand it, but the words seemed familiar, pulling at something deep inside. It was like something inside her recognized it and was trying to get the rest of her to.
She opened her eyes as the lighting in the shuttle changed. They were going through the upper atmosphere and the black of space gave way to the lightness of blue skies. The green of land and blue of the oceans spread out before them, becoming larger as they sped through the skies. She couldn’t help herself, sitting forward to watch in fascination. It looked so like Earth.
Rynn’s hands moved and they headed for a large, sprawling city that came into view below them. Within minutes they were low enough that she could start making out details. The st
reets and parks, rows of houses and what could only be markets. Dominating it all on a hill in the center was a large palace. She sucked in a breath, impressed despite herself.
Blinding white, with huge columns, it looked like a sci-fi version of Mount Olympus crossed with a desert sheikh’s palace. Leaning forward, she could see towers and halls, walkways and hidden gardens. Small pools that glittered like gems. It looked so open and unguarded that she frowned. For a warrior race, she’d expected the Latharian emperor’s palace to be heavily fortified with high walls, battlements and a deep, dark moat… probably with flesh-eating alien fish in it.
But then she spotted the slight shimmer over the windows and arching over the gardens, the edge of heavy shutters at the top of the columns on the walkways. What had looked like ornamental statues on first glance appeared to be rotating in place, keeping them in sight. Artillery arrays. They had to be. Her opinion of the palace went up several notches as Rynn brought the shuttle around in a low sweeping arc toward a runway. Other shuttles lined the edges, obviously parked… if that was the term used for a shuttle. She didn’t know. Until yesterday she’d never been in a space ship.
The shuttle touched down with a tiny bump and Rynn expertly maneuvered it into place between two others. Jumping out of his seat, he was gone down the ramp before she could say a word. Feeling abandoned and alone, she followed him, creeping down the ramp and peeking under the hull to see the big warrior talking to two others a short way away from the shuttle.
They were equally as big as him, one of them even more so. She moved further down the ramp, unseen for the moment. The two other Lathar were dressed in leathers like Rynn, both with long hair, and looked very similar apart from the fact one was covered in vicious scars. She sucked a horrified breath in. What could have caused all that… some kind of accident in space or something?
