Shy Talent (StarLords Book 3)

by Bianca D'Arc

  “It is true.” The first man who had spoken with them was back, standing in front of Agnor with a phalanx of men behind him.

  Bet gasped, worried. Was this going to turn ugly? She sincerely hoped not.

  “Ki gives you this gift of itself.” The man gestured to the men behind him as he stepped back to allow them to move forward. Each carried a crystal in their hands, each one of different size and shape.

  “Ki wishes you to make a study and determine how to make yourselves safe from tyranny. Ki is not a tyrant. Ki does not wish its power to be used to enslave others. Ki craves order, not that individual people be made slaves to it.”

  Bet didn’t really understand, but Agnor nodded, recovering as he took deep breaths. He leaned less on Bet and eventually stood on his own again, the priests facing him, watching him closely.

  “Ki does not understand regret, but we do.” Lara came forward to speak for the group. “We took the blue man’s color as a sign. Looking for portents is, perhaps, a purely human failing. We gave that man the small shards of Ki that occasionally spall off from the main. It was our decision. Our mistake. Our regret.”

  Agnor kept his silence, and Bet didn’t really know what to say. Lara seemed so sad.

  “We can fix it,” Bet offered. “It won’t be easy, but our people have been trying to free those caught by the collective for a long time. They’ll find a way.”

  “I hope you are right,” Lara said, then turned toward the path they had taken into the cavern. “I hate to rush you, but over the years, we have become aware how closely our planet is monitored by the blue man’s friends. If you are able, sir, you should be on your way as soon as possible. My friends will carry the spallings to your ship and help you settle them. Then they must go back to their areas so the watchers don’t get too suspicious.”

  “I can make it,” Agnor said with quiet dignity.

  He still seemed pale, as if he’d been through something Bet couldn’t quite understand while he’d been communing with Ki. She was curious but counted herself lucky, in a way, that she’d passed out. Agnor looked terrible.

  She stuck by his side, allowing him to lean against her shoulder from time to time as they reversed their path back to the ship. The priests were fewer in number, but still with them. And those who carried the so-called spallings were walking with both speed and reverence.

  They arrived back at the ship to find it undisturbed. The priests were very efficient in loading the spallings, each of which had a protective pouch made of some natural fiber that was both lightweight and strong. Bet eyed the cargo carefully as it loaded. It would be protected in the fiber cloth, but she quietly directed the priests to place the heavier items in certain locations, careful to balance out the load. Such things would be crucial as they broke through the atmosphere.

  Finally, only the main priest and Lara were left. They exchanged formal goodbyes, and Bet thanked the woman for her kindness. The priestly couple retreated, and then finally, Agnor and Bet were free to leave Ipson. Agnor had recovered a bit on the journey back from the cavern, but his color was still a bit pale.

  He was able to maneuver the shuttle up through the atmosphere with quiet competence, but he frowned as they started to reach thinner air, miles above the surface. Bet observed him closely, unsure how to help, but ready to step in if he needed her.

  “They weren’t kidding about being watched,” Agnor commented. “We couldn’t see them on approach, but from underneath, the sky is filled with satellites. We’re lucky we didn’t hit anything on the way down.” He made a few maneuvers while Bet kept a careful eye on the load of crystals in the back of the small craft. So far, so good. “Hmm. They’re going to see that,” he muttered. “And…yes. They’ve detected us. See the attitude of that satellite? It changed to track us. As have the others. Damn.”

  “What can I do?” Bet asked, trying to be helpful, but feeling quite useless.

  “Power down all non-essentials. We don’t need comms. I can ‘path the ship. In fact, I already have. They’re moving into range, matching course and speed. If we can just get there before…”

  They both saw it at the same time.

  “Oh, shit.” It wasn’t very ladylike, her aunt would have said, and it was definitely a ground-dweller’s term, but it fit the gravity of their new situation.

  They watched three enemy ships move out, in formation, from behind a small moon. Other ships did the same from behind another. And then, more made themselves known in other parts of the system. All were broadcasting one message: Surrender.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “No way in hell,” Agnor said as he implemented more evasive maneuvers.

  Whether the enemy had spotted the Calypso or the shuttle, or both, he wasn’t sure. Whatever the case, he had no intention of surrendering. Not in this lifetime.

  “Divert all power to the shields. We’re almost to the Calypso.”

  Bet, bless her heart, was following his commands as if she’d always been on the bridge of a vessel about to come under attack. She was as professional as he could have hoped. She wouldn’t fall apart on him. At least, probably not until after they’d escaped. He wouldn’t mind it then. About that time, he figured, he’d need a hug too.

  An energy weapon clattered against their shields, lighting up the interior of the shuttle with angry red sparks. But the shields held while Agnor ‘pathed instructions to Lilith.

  A moment later, the Calypso was taking the hit, blocking the barrage to the shuttle while Agnor flew it as fast as he dared into the bay.

  He’d barely shut down the engines when he felt the Calypso sway dangerously.

  “That wasn’t a beam weapon,” Bet whispered, her fingers still flying over the consoles as she helped him shut down the craft.

  “Missiles.” Agnor unbuckled his safety harness and headed for the exit. “Can you shut down and take care of the cargo?”

  Bet looked up and met his gaze for one timeless instant. Emotions passed between them in that moment out of time that they had never spoken aloud. He wanted her to know how he truly felt about her, but there was no time. There would never be time if he didn’t get to the bridge and evade the collective’s armada.

  She nodded, breaking the spell, freeing him to move. Time started up again. He raced out of the shuttle, heading for the bridge at a run.

  Bet didn’t waste time. She shut down the shuttle so the engines were secure. There were procedures for this, but she had to cut as many corners as she could. They were under attack, and she had to get to the hold and prepare that very special inventory in case the gunners needed replenishment for their ammunition stock.

  But she had to take care of the spallings too. Working quickly, she used her telekinetic power to bring a large, empty storage bin from one corner of the bay over to the hatch of the shuttle. One by one, she lifted the wrapped spallings with her mind, placing them gently into the container that had been specially designed for fragile items. It had inflatable walls and dividers which she triggered using her Talent, as each section filled with the precious crystal.

  Once they were all transferred and the little ship was secure, Bet wasted no time taking the full container with her out of the bay and into the hold. She stowed it near the door, lashing it down as best she could under the circumstances.

  A few of the spallings were very close to the top of the container, but she didn’t have time to fix that now. She had felt the shuddering of the ship as it returned fire. The gunners would need to reload soon, and Bet had to be ready to deliver the necessary ammunition.

  Using her Talent without hesitation, she maneuvered giant shipping containers around the hold with precise movements, freeing the ammunition, which had been stored among them, hiding in plain sight. Just as her comm station lit with the automated request for replenishment, Bet was sending the containers down the various corridors, using her Talent to direct them where they were most needed.

  Once that was done, she had a moment to spare, to see to t
he safety of the spallings. As she had feared, one of the medium sized crystals had come out of its protective wrapping. For some odd reason, the crystal itself did not respond to her Talent. She spent a moment puzzling over the fact that she could manipulate the fiber covering, but not the crystal itself, using her telekinesis. Seeing no other alternative, she reached for the crystal, taking it in her bare hand.

  And then, everything changed.

  Suddenly, she was no longer in the ship. She was no longer really in her body. She could see the placement of all the ships in the enemy armada around her, as if she was the Calypso. She could see energy signatures in three-dimensional space without the use of instruments.

  It was the crystal. Somehow, it allowed her to see things that she would never have been able to understand before.

  She knew what she had to do.

  “Sir!” Jemin almost shouted as the enemy ships began moving in impossible ways.

  “I see it,” Agnor replied. “I see it, but I don’t believe it.”

  He watched, along with the rest of the crew, as each ship in the enemy armada was tossed out of their path, one by one, ship by ship. It looked like nothing Agnor had ever seen before. It almost looked like a child tossing blocks out of its play area, if such a thing were possible with massive ships designed for interstellar travel.

  That’s about the time Agnor realized he hadn’t had the station report from Bet. If she was acting according to protocol, she should have filed the routine report of readiness from her location a few minutes ago. Instead, enemy ships had begun flinging themselves—somehow—far out of the Calypso’s path.

  Agnor began to get an idea of what must be happening. However incredible it seemed, Bet had to be doing something with those ships.

  He knew for a fact she was the most powerful telekinetic he had ever known. And if she’d done her job—and he had no reason to doubt her—she now had a load of Ki crystals in the hold with her. It wasn’t that far a stretch to think that the two things might be connected.

  He worried for her safety. Nobody knew what using the spallings might do to a person. Jana was the only being on a Council world who had ever dealt with the crystal, and she had paid a dear price for it. Agnor wanted to reach out to Bet, but he also didn’t want to endanger her by possibly breaking her concentration.

  He had to go to her. In person. Now.

  Agnor leapt from his command chair and nodded toward Lilith as he headed for the hatch.

  “The path is clear. Get us the hell out of here,” he ordered, on his way out.

  He didn’t pause to answer any of the questions he could see in Lilith’s eyes. There would be time for that—he hoped—later. Once again, he ran through the ship at full speed, this time heading directly for the cargo hold.

  He found Bet there, very close to the hatch, standing stock still, as if she was in a trance. In her hand, one of the spallings glittered, and Bet’s lovely dark eyes reflected the blue color of the crystal, the facets sparkling in her gaze.

  “Bet? Sweetheart? Are you all right?” Agnor approached slowly.

  The spalling she held was one of the larger crystals, about the length of Agnor’s hand, tip to tip. It had two points, one on either end, and its clarity was amazing. It glistened and shone in the dark light of the hold, the facets dancing with power.

  “Bet?” he asked again, moving closer to her.

  She didn’t seem able to see him, but her head cocked a bit, toward the sound of his voice.

  “Bet? Can you hear me?”

  “Agnor?” she whispered in reply.

  “I’m here, sweetheart. How are you doing?” He moved cautiously closer.

  “It’s…it’s amazing. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.” He heard the true wonder in her voice, but then she frowned. “Are we clear? Why aren’t we moving faster?”

  “Good question.” Agnor wondered why they hadn’t taken off as he’d ordered.

  He could tell by the pitch of the engines and the vibration of the deck plates that they weren’t moving any faster than they had been when he’d made his dash from the bridge. He spared a moment to ‘path Lilith.

  “What’s happening, Lil? Why are we still here?” he asked the older woman.

  “It’s not for lack of trying,” Lilith reported back, her tone exasperated. “We’re trying, but something’s holding us back.”

  “Oh!” Bet exclaimed, drawing Agnor’s attention. “I understand now.”

  “What do you understand, my love?” Agnor asked quietly.

  “What Ki wants,” she replied in a reasonable tone that Agnor still didn’t quite understand. “You’d better tell everybody to brace themselves. Ki is about to clean house, and there are at least three other spallings used by the collective, in the vicinity. We’re going to get hit by a power wave, but these crystals in our hold will protect the Calypso.”

  “Oh shit,” Agnor whispered, even as he figured out what was about to happen.

  He’d lived through the destruction of Jana’s control crystal, but if he was interpreting Bet’s words correctly, they were about to triple the effect. He ran to the comm and broadcast through the ship.

  “Brace, brace, brace!” He shouted. “Incoming power waves. Hold on, people. This is going to be a rough ride.”

  And then, it hit.

  He’d been through something like this before, but not with such intensity. The waves of power shook the ship. Agnor staggered over to Bet and took her in his arms, the crystal be damned.

  It glowed with white hot intensity between them, still clutched in her bare hand as he wrapped his arms around her and tried to keep them both on their feet. The crystal’s light was almost blinding. He shut his eyes against it, but there was no accompanying heat. The crystal was cool to the touch, but filled with light so bright it hurt to look at it.

  The ship shook and wobbled, buffeted by energy waves from the ships that had been tossed out of its path. The collective’s armada was still close enough that the destruction of their control crystals affected large swaths of space—including the entire Ipson system.

  When the light from the crystal began to die down, Agnor could detect the difference from behind his eyelids. He cracked one, to test whether or not it was safe to open his eyes and found that he could. He looked around the compartment and realized that all the spallings in their fiber coverings were glowing. Their light shone right through the fiber sacks.

  “Lilith? Report if you can,” Agnor sent telepathically, hoping the crew on the bridge had come through the energy storm intact.

  “We’re all right,” Lilith sent back, though ‘pathing wasn’t usually her strong suit. “Everyone’s a little stunned, and we’re doing assessments now. Looks like…” She paused for a moment. “Three of the enemy ships are jettisoning life pods. Each one is near a planet or moon.”

  “Ki is letting the innocent escape before he destroys their ships. Ki doesn’t want any more of itself roaming loose among the collective,” Bet broke in, ‘pathing to both Agnor and Lilith as if she’d always done such things. “Ki will use those shards to seed those worlds with itself. It wants to grow.”

  Agnor would consider that startling information later. For now, he had to take stock of the ship, its crew, and what they might be able to do for those refugees from the collective who had just been cut off rather abruptly from its control.

  “Honey, can you come with me to the bridge?” Agnor asked Bet, glad to see that her eyes were returning to normal.

  No longer did her gaze sparkle with the reflected light of Ki and the stars themselves. Little by little, his Bet, his little mouse, was coming back to him.

  “Let me just put this away,” she said, moving back and reaching for the fiber cover that had fallen off the spalling in her hand.

  With little fuss, she put the crystal away, placing it among the others in the cargo container. She took a moment to stow it all properly, making sure the container’s cover was in place so that none of the spalli
ngs could break loose again. Then, she turned to him, her eyes bright with accomplishment.

  “That was really something, huh?” she said, almost mischievously.

  Agnor couldn’t help himself. He gathered her in his arms and gave her a swift, deep, exuberant kiss. They didn’t have time for more, much to his regret, but he couldn’t let the moment pass without demonstrating how much he cared for her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hand in hand, they walked onto the bridge a few minutes later. Bet felt the difference immediately. Everyone here had undergone a great shock. Their power was warping and twisting around them in beams of light that, it seemed, only Bet could see.

  “Whoa.” She stopped short, taking in the scene before her.

  “What?” Agnor asked. “What do you see?”

  “You probably wouldn’t believe it if I could describe it properly. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” she said, staring at the people on the bridge, who were in various stages of recovery. “It’s kind of beautiful, actually. The power is dancing around them, resettling into new patterns. Growing. Changing... Becoming.”

  She stepped onto the bridge, no longer afraid, now that she understood what she was seeing. Her recent experience with Ki had taught her a great deal about how she could visualize the patterns behind each Talent. She had seen it with the ships out there in the Ipson system. She saw it again here, on a smaller scale, but still quite impressive.

  “I thought so,” Agnor said, pacing beside her. He moved onto the bridge and looked at each member of his crew stationed there, examining them closely.

  Bet watched the interplay as Agnor’s already formidable energies influenced and touched the newly forming patterns around each person. His care for his people was evident in the way his energies almost cradled theirs, helping where he could, even if he didn’t understand the exact mechanism of what he was doing. Bet saw the results as each person gained a bit more control after he talked with them.

  Much like the voyage of the Circe Bet had read about, where everyone on the crew had gained new levels of power after Jana’s control crystal blew up in her hands, something similar had to have happened here. Everyone was dazed, some dealing with it better than others. And everyone looked to Bet like they had new energies wrapping around them.