Title: Revant Warriors The Complete Series (Books 1-6)

by Celeste Raye

  He said, “So were you.”

  Her laugh was incredulous. “Me? Oh no. I was just too busy trying not to die to be scared for a while there.”

  His shoulder met hers. The light touch rocketed through her body. More heat flushed through her system. She slid away from him just a little bit. He said, “Courage is not being without fear; it’s doing things even though you’re afraid.”

  She turned her head to survey his profile. He was tired, and it showed. The trip and the things that they had seen along the way had worn him down. Her heart ached for him. He was a good and decent being. He craved peace and joy. Life.

  Nothing that she had seen on the surface of Old Earth had made her think of any of those things.

  Talon began taking out refresher bottles. They were small, no more than three inches high. He passed them out one to each person. Next, he pulled out packets of a type of protein and carbohydrate bar and passed those out as well. The refresher bottles were clever. They were no taller than her thumb, but that was deceptive.

  As soon as she popped the tab on its side, the refresher bottle began to expand in both length and width. The liquid inside it had been atomized and compressed. Bubbles formed and she could hear a lot of gurgling inside the bottle.

  She watched, fascinated, as the clear drinkable liquid filled the entire bottle. She opened it and guzzled it down. She recapped the bottle and leaned her head against the wall. Talon came back around, taking the refresher bottles and stowing them away in his pack. Marik’s hand came out and rested on her shoulder. More heat filled her body, and her heart let out a slow pound while her brain screamed out a warning that she was not supposed to feel that way for Marik.

  She was there. She was home. She was supposed to be looking for Ben, not huddling in this house next to Marik while he touched her just enough to make her body and mind and heart want to betray the man who truly loved her.

  Talon said, “It’s less than three hundred yards now to the hospital. We can make it. If the Rovers didn’t take the tunnels, they would not have come this far. There are too many guards and so forth along the way. Too many people willing to keep peace and order and use weapons to do it.”

  Marik braced himself against the wall and pushed himself up. His hand came out, and she looked at it then up at his face. Instead of taking his hand, she pushed herself up off the floor much in the same way that he had. She thought she saw a small flash of hurt on his face, but if it had been there, it had fled as quickly as they had come up and she could no longer see it.

  Maybe she had imagined it.

  They started off slowly, going out the door and to the right, and then forming up again so that the chests of precious cargo would be safe, or at least as safe as they could be. The hospital was indeed not far, and they managed to get across the distance without any other true danger.

  Jenny’s heart nearly exploded with grief when she stepped into that hospital. Humans, hundreds upon hundreds of them, all in various states of injury, lay or sat on the floor. That there were not enough beds for all of the wounded was obvious. That there weren’t enough people to attend to them came home to her as a young girl, clinging to the arm of an injured woman who must’ve been her mother, began screaming for help. Tears ran down her face, and nobody went to her side.

  Jenny went. She broke right out of the party that she had traveled there with and ran to the young girl. She knelt on the floor. “Let me see if I can help her.”

  The girl, who could’ve only been about eight or nine years old, nodded her head. Her face wore the same shocked expression that the woman who confronted them in the alley had worn. Jenny draped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug and squeeze. “It shall be okay. I promise you, we will do all that we can.”

  The little girl gave her a look that said she didn’t believe her. As soon as Jenny opened the torn sides of the tunic the woman wore, she found she didn’t believe it either.

  The wound was not only terrible: it was infected. She’d probably been injured days before. She looked at the little girl, “How long has she been here?”

  The little girl scrubbed her fists against her eyes. “We got here last night. But nobody’s come to help her. There are so many people here. Nobody has time for us. I think it’s because we’re from Below.”

  Jenny shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s that there are too few healers and too many sick. Listen, what’s your name?”

  The little girl’s hands dropped away from her eyes. “Melinda.”

  Jenny managed a smile. “Melinda, can you possibly help me here?”

  Marik’s voice spoke from above her. “We need fresh water. We need to clean that wound as best we can and give her the medication that would help her heal.”

  She looked up at him. Tears sparkled on her eyelashes. This was so much worse than anything she ever could have imagined, and she was not sure she had the courage to go on. Her head nodded up and down.

  Melinda stood, obviously wanting to help the woman who must be her mother. “There’s no water.”

  Marik said, “I have a refresher bottle here.” His eyes searched the little girl’s face and figure. His voice dropped even lower. “Tell me, Melinda, how long has it been since you had something to eat or drink?”

  Melinda’s little shoulders lifted and dropped. Her eyes went back to her mother. “I don’t know. Can you please just help my mom? I am not hungry anyway. I don’t need anything to drink. Please just help her. She’s probably really hungry and thirsty.”

  Jenny knew that the woman was neither hungry nor thirsty. She was deeply unconscious and beyond that. She said, “Give me a refresher bottle, Marik.”

  He nodded, stood, walked away. He came back holding two bottles and several protein bars. He said to Melinda, “Listen, I need you to be a very big help to me now. I need you to sit down and drink at least half of this bottle. Then I need you to eat at least half of this bar. I need you to be strong because in a little while I’m going to require you to help me with your mother. If you have no strength, you can’t help me. Do you understand?”

  Jenny knew what he was doing. She was hungry, and she was thirsty, but she was far too worried about her mother to take the food or the water at the moment. He was giving her a reason to take it. He was giving her purpose.

  Melinda nodded and reached out her grubby hands. Marik opened the bottle for her, and she gasped in wonder as it expanded and filled.

  Jenny asked her to step away, to go to another corner of the wall, and she went. When Jenny looked over again, she was already halfway through the bottle and more than halfway through the protein bar.

  Her gaze went around the room. Many of the crew members were distributing food and other refresher bottles. The refresher bottles refilled themselves. It was a neat little trick of technology, and one that was far more advanced than anything she had ever seen on Old Earth. Talon made it very clear to each person that he gave the bottle to that he must have the bottles back if they were going to have water again and every single person drank deeply then handed the bottles back.

  Marik said, “Jenny. I need you to focus.”

  She took a deep breath. She had been paying attention to everything else because the sight of that wound; missing flesh and encrusted blood, infection and violent streaks of a purple-red that had spread away from the wound, told her that there was very little that they could do. She did not want to fail here and now.

  Marik said, “We must do all we can with what we have. Hand me the cutter.”

  Jenny took a deep breath. Marik began cutting, and he had no sooner laid the cutter against the swollen and red flesh than the infection began to pour out. She blotted it as quickly as she could on cloths to keep it from spreading into the room. Marik poured water over the wound to help try to flush it out. The woman began to toss and turn, her stupor being broken by the pain that was lancing through her body now.

  Marik said, “I taught you to stitch. Can you do it now?”
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  She stared down at the abraded glistening flesh before her. It was one thing to stitch a small and not very deep cut that only required one or two stitches and entirely another to stitch that huge and gaping wound. She quailed. Her courage failed her. Her lips trembled. Her head shook back and forth.

  Marik’s hands reached across the woman’s body. His fingers took hers.

  His voice made her lift her head and her eyes locked on his. He said, “Jenny, here are the tools. They are in your hand. Stitch her well.” She had just told him that she could not do it! Why was he pushing her to do what she could not do?

  She looked back down at the wound. “I don’t know where to stitch. I don’t know how much harm I might cause her.”

  Marik said, “Yes, you do. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and just see it in your mind. When you have, when you’ve seen the path that you must take to stitch her well, then you take that path. Open your eyes and stitch her.”

  What was he talking about? Jenny drew a deep breath. Her eyes closed. There was nothing there but darkness. A slow ache started between her temples and then, all of a sudden, something, something very much like a memory, flared into life.

  She could see the wound even though her eyes were closed. She could see her hand stitching, folding skin together and muscle as well. She watched, fascinated for she didn’t know how long until the stitching was done.

  Her eyes flew open and went down to where the woman lay. She was actually surprised to see that the wound was still open, still shedding water and bits of infection and dead skin away from it as Marik continued to wash the wound with not just water now, but a healing solution that he had mixed from powder and the refresher bottle’s water.

  Marik said, “You can do this. Do it, Jenny.”

  She held up the tools. She took a deep breath. Her brain insisted that she could do this; that she knew exactly how to do it because she had seen it done already. She bent low and began stitch.

  Chapter 6- Marik

  Marik held his breath as Jenny began to stitch. The implant in her head, all it did was awaken the knowledge that she had been born with. She was a natural healer, but not a touch healer. Or at least he didn’t know yet if she was a touch healer as well.

  She stitched with a slow and steady hand. Her fingers never trembled. When the wound was stitched, he looked up over her head and motioned for the child. Melinda appeared, clutching the refresher bottle, which held only a few drops of liquid in it now. He spoke to her softly, “Take the tip of the bottle and place it just on her lips. Only put what you have in the bottle into her mouth. She doesn’t need anything more. You have saved her exactly the right amount.”

  Melinda gave him a solemn stare and then she knelt beside her mother. She dripped the water into her mother’s mouth and then drew back when her mother let out a pained and low moan.

  Marik continued to soothe the child. “It’s all right. She’s not even awake. She won’t be awake for quite some time. You must stay with her. Keep everyone away from her. Don’t let anyone touch her where she’s injured. Don’t you touch her where she’s injured either. I’ve given her medication and cleaned her wound, but that infection is nasty. If it comes back again, and it will if people touch where she’s been sewn, she may not live. It is your duty to take care of her now. Do you understand?”

  Melinda whispered, “I understand. I won’t let anyone hurt her.”

  Marik stood. “Good.”

  Jenny stood as well. Her eyes went to the child, and he read pity in them. They did not have time for pity nor did they have time to coddle the girl anymore. This was war. Unfortunately, children were often caught up in the aftermath or even in the actual event. Melinda was lucky just to be alive. They could do nothing else for her at the moment, and there were so many who needed their help right now.

  Jenny didn’t have to be told that. She followed him to the next person. She held the young human male down, pressing her entire body weight onto his shoulders while Marik sat on one of his legs in order to set the other. The cracking of bone and the screams of the young man filled the room. He saw Jenny flinch slightly, but she did not let go.

  After the young man’s leg was splinted and bound, they moved onward.

  It was a nightmare. An unrelenting and terrible nightmare made up of bloodied agony and death. There were so many that they could do nothing for. It was already too late. The only thing that they could do was assign people who were more able and less injured to sit with those people and hold their hands and talk to them as best they could while they died.

  Jenny wept a few times but her tears were always silent, and they never stopped her from working. Marik watched her with real appreciation. She had no idea how much strength it took to do what she was doing. She had no idea that she was strong. She also had no idea that her touch comforted those that she was working on.

  The implant, the reminding of her ability that it was there, had been useful but he worried that the strain of what was happening and the lack of rest would eventually wear on her.

  Hours passed, and he barely noticed. Every time he thought he had seen the worst case, a new one presented itself.

  He and Jenny split up at one point because they had come across almost an entire room of patients who just needed minor care and who were in desperate and dire need of food and water along with that. When they finished in that room, they met again in the hallway. Jenny leaned against one wall. There were lavender half circles below her lovely eyes, and she said, “Marik, I don’t know how much more I can take today.”

  He said, “No more.”

  She looked over her shoulder, her eyes going back to the patient’s huddled in the room. “I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe so many are so hurt. All I want to do is scream, I’m so mad. Is that normal?”

  He nodded his head. “Yes, of course it is. You have every right to be angry. These are your people. They are suffering and dying all around you. If you are not angry, that would not be normal.”

  She gave him a tired smile. “Thank you. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me.”

  He said, “The only thing wrong with you right now is that you need food and sleep. We both do. There are other healers here, and they’ve been working all day too. Unfortunately, you and I absolutely have to go rest now. We can’t tend to them if we can’t think, if we can’t even keep our eyes open to care for them.”

  Jenny lifted a hand to her hair. During the long day, it had come loose from the coil that she had put it in earlier. Little tendrils of blonde hair waved all around her face and along her brow. She sighed heavily. “I hate to admit it, but I think you’re right.”

  He said, “I think Talon and Jessica have made space upstairs for us and the crew. Let’s see if we can find them.”

  They started up the stairs. Marik’s entire body ached with fatigue, and he stumbled a few times. Jenny’s hand came out and went underneath his elbow. He looked over at her, and she gave him a wry smile. “To be honest, if you really did fall, I’m not sure me trying to hold you would do you any good at all but it makes me feel better.”

  To his surprise, he was still able to laugh. “It makes me feel better as well.”

  They went upstairs again. On the second floor, far to the left, they finally found Talon and the others. Talon was seated before a table, his face wearing a thick scowl. Jessica lay on the floor under a single cover, her face turned toward the wall and her weapon cradled in her arms.

  Talon said, “Bad news. The Rovers that we evaded have begun to draw closer toward the side of the city. It seems they have looted all that they could over by the western edge of the place. They’re either hungry enough to be desperate or violent enough to just want blood. Either way, they may be something we have to fight.”

  Marik pointed Jenny toward a corner and a blanket, and she went towards it gratefully. He saw her settle in and he watched her for a moment before turning back to Talon. “The ship is still circlin
g?”

  Talon said, “I don’t dare leave her at the dock. I don’t truly dare to leave her up in space either. At least not in this solar system. Those are my only options though. I keep her on the planet, they’ll try to take her. If I keep her in the sky, there may be ships up there that will try to take her. Also, if we have to escape really fast, we may have to wait until she can dock again. It’s a no-win situation, but it’s the only situation at hand, so there you go.”

  Marik spoke softly. “We have been in far worse situations.”

  The smiles that they exchanged were grim. It was true enough. A light snore came from the side of the room were Jenny lay and Marik shot her sleeping figure an amused glance before saying to Talon, “I can see why you care.”

  Talon’s eyes met his. Then Talon’s eyes slid over to Jenny. “I can see why you do as well.”

  Marik looked down. The truth of the matter was Jenny loved someone else, and humans were strange. Once they decided they loved somebody, they could often be completely illogical when it came to that person. They would completely disregard all others for the most part in the hopes of having that one person.

  Talon said, “After this, all I want to do is go home. I want to help because Jessica needs this. The truth of the matter is that the Federation is going to have to be either disbanded completely or they’re going to have to step up and do the right thing.”

  Marik snorted. “What are the chances of the Federation actually doing the things they promise? I never understood why the Federation managed to broker so much trust in the people that it overtook.”

  One of the humans, Cliff, came over and sat down. His fingers drummed on the table top. He said, “I don’t know how they managed on other systems, but here on this planet, a very long time ago, at least according to history books, people would actually choose their leaders. There was some sort of system where they would go to these little houses and pick them. The leaders were always liars. The leaders told the people here that they worked for them. Only they never really did. They always just worked for themselves. They took everything they could get and left the people without. The funny thing is that people just kept doing it.”