Arnica

by I. Christie

  "Well, it's nice to see a Caladia doing something noble," she teased gently as she lifted the bandage from his head, to look at it.

  Jac blushed because he knew Caladia were not known as the most honest group of beings on Arnica. Bragging about near brushes with calamity was more a Caladia's way than actually getting involved physically. It was not in their species makeup…or so it was believed by everyone, including Caladias.

  "Is it true that the Caladia have left Allint?" she asked as she worked on rebandaging his head.

  "I don't really know. It was a rumor when I heard it this morning."

  She shook her head sadly. "The Queen will see that whatever mess they're in is straighten out. She's always fair and more. Okay, then, let me see the arm."

  "So," she began after she had finished with her inspection, "what do you intend on doing?"

  Jac shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I'll be a traveler for a while. Can't hurt my future." He was too embarrassed to mention he had no funds.

  She nodded. "It would do you good, provided you follow the rules of travel."

  The Elf rejoined the two of them. "So how's our young helper doing?"

  "Good. In a week he'll be fit to travel."

  The Elf nodded. "You can stay at my farm until you're feeling better. I hear you want to be a traveler for a while. Do you know what the requirements are?"

  "I hear anyone can be, provided he follows the rules." He squinted up at the Elf.

  "There's a lot of Drosuan travelers of late, since the Queen's mandate. It'll make the Black Alliance think twice about attacking the small groups. Doesn't help the single or pairs of travelers though. You should think about looking for four others to join up with."

  Two weeks later, Jac was traveling alone to his first travel lodge, jumpy at even the sound of wind in the nearby trees. He avoided the places the worrisome spirits may be. He heard plenty about them from other students. Spirits usually were not harmful, but since the Black Alliance entities that normally a child with the right spell could keep from harming them, were roaming to do mischief.

  He was hoping to meet up with others along the road who would want a larger party. So far the three groups he met, were traveling in the opposite direction, and did not want another person in their party. They were too somber anyway.

  In payment for Jac's help, Clmora supplied him with the proper attire for a traveler and pack with a change of clothes. Not much for someone used to having more than he could use. He thought about going home, but having to hear his father's insults, and his mother nagging him to find something to do pushed him to think harder on being a potter's apprentice. He had no idea how the system worked, but once he was in the city, he would find out.

  Jac tossed his pack onto the unmade cot. The travelers lodge outside of Posthups was small but well stocked with clean linens and a working video on the rules. Most towns had the same rules, but for the few that were strict on usage, it paid to be careful.

  Misbehaving once and experiencing the punishment, gave him enough incentive to follow the rules.

  This lodge asked the usual; some time spent weeding the lodge's garden plot, and clean up inside if needed. However, the interior was already cleaned and the garden, from what he could see, was already well weeded. Then he looked in the laundry basket and groaned. The last three groups obviously did not like doing the laundry.

  He was too busy dumping the linen into the washing machine to notice someone approach.

  In a haze, Jac was aware of being jostled against another. Then awareness of the strong smell of excrement and urine made him gag. It was humiliating when he realized it was his. He was bound securely to the side of a cart. When his eyes became adjusted to the dark interior, he saw the cart was full. From what he could tell, he was the only Caladia.

  The trip could have gone on for days. All he knew was there was no food or water given to them. The door that held them never opened.

  By the time the cart stopped moving, he was too weak to notice anything. He was hauled out of the cart and shoved into a cage. The dish that was shoved under his cell door looked like liquid soap and smelled just like it. His empty stomach heaved and for a day he resisted sipping it. When he did venture a shaking hand to dip a finger into the stuff to wipe across his lips, his fingers burned from contact. In anger he shoved the bowl out onto the floor. Exhausted and starved he blearily stared out of his cage trying to focus on where he was. He could hear cries of pain and see other cages lining a wall with a Gustian dressed in strange attire busily working at a long desk. He would look up occasionally when moaning or whimpering stopped. Then shuffle over to the cage, study the occupant, taking notes or muttering to whoever was there.

  It was too soon when the Gustian stood in front of his cage.

  "Hmm. Male, two inches shorter than an adult Caladia. Well, let's see if I can add ten inches to you. That would be something." He laughed callously as he walked away.

  Jac decided he was going to die from starvation.

  His capturer, reading Jac's resolution to die, had two mechanical beings restrain him while he injected him. After that, Jac lived in constant agony. His body burned from inside and ached without relief. He became another moan among the many.

  Chapter 7

  Alexandra's heart beat frantically. Terrified, she could only watch as her lover sank to the floor. The same pain that filled her lover, Jina Gari, burned through her nerves as she fell helpless to the deck. If her vocal cords were not frozen, she would have screamed in agony. Her temporary escape was a loss of consciousness.

  Alexandra was aware of being infused with a drug and its immediate effect calmed her. Happier dreams made its way to her sleeping self.

  The sentient life form, a Sha'Kar from Merker's Outpost, was the first to be aware of the change in Trojan Horse's systems. The ship's process of waking the two bioforms in the sleep pods commenced. Inactive muscles needed to be stimulated and brought into shape. Toxins were flushed from bodies, and subliminal recordings on information for mental health were started. In another area of the ship's database, reports of it's journey were being catalogued and prepared for the ship's captain to peruse when she was ready.

  At the end of the week, two sleep pod lids popped open, and the room lit to a soft glow. The occupants took a few minutes, blinking at the light, and letting the last effects of the tape recording drift off. They both felt sick.

  Slowly, Commander Lady Alexandra Harriet Montran of the Centurion Corps of Collective Space, rose from her bed of three hundred and seventy seven days. She stretched tentatively, not sure how her body would respond to movement after the long length of inactivity. Until this trip, she had never traveled in a sleep pod, and at the moment had reservations of doing it again anytime soon.

  Alexandra looked over at Lt. Megan Vanstar, a Shield Maiden from the House of Athena. She was testing her legs by shakily walking across the cool storage bay, with one hand firmly planted on the bulkhead for balance. By the strained look on the lieutenant's face, she was not doing too well. Her jaw was set so tight Alexandra thought her teeth must hurt . If she was trying to impress her, she wished she would not.

  "Glad to see you made it," Alexandra greeted her hoarsely.

  "Ditto, Commander," Vanstar croaked. She swallowed a few times before resuming her unsteady walk. "Bloody moon, " she said. "You're going to have to knock me out before I get in one of those pods again."

  Alexandra silently agreed with her sentiment. Alexandra's thoughts turned to her lifemate, Colonel Jina Gari Zohra, also a Shield Maiden from the House of Athena, and a member of a select group within the Shield called Hekate's Inner Circle. She wondered how she was faring and where she was on her long journey to the same planet they were headed to. Arnica.

  According to the ship's tactical database, their destination was Alan Fermin's fortress on Arnica. It was in another quadrant, outside of familiar space; a part of space the Collective and GCFC powers had not spread their enforceable influence over
yet.

  Meaning, they were on their own.

  Alexandra felt the Sha'Kar's presence.

  "Welcome," Evenastar thought to Alexandra.

  "Greetings, Evenstar. Was your journey interesting?"

  "It was."

  Images of planets the private yacht passed, and a pleased feeling at what Evanstar felt, filled Alexandra. Evanstar found some of the star patterns familiar.

  "Why have you come, Evanstar?" she asked the Sha'Kar.

  "Commander?"

  Alexandra turned to look at Vanstar.

  "Shall we check out the bridge and make sure we have edible food?" Vanstar asked.

  "And get a list of all points of contact the ship made while we were sleeping."

  After an hour of checking the systems Alexandra felt it safe to satisfy their hunger with what the ship produced. They drank their nutrition, while looking out at the stars, taking a brief moment to relax.

  "Our orders on the surface are simple," Alexandra broke the silence. "Find the colonists and neutralize within the planet's accepted rules whatever damage they caused.

  Let's see what information we have on Arnica."

  Vanstar nodded and tapped a screen for information. "This is Emperor's LastChances' report on the inhabitants."

  An image of Arnica flashed on their screens. Quietly they read the information under the pictures and studied the dress and species that they would be meeting up with.

  "Looks like we'll fit in. They have enough of a species mix for us to not stand out as foreigners," Alexandra said. "They don't tolerate killing of any living creature, or harming another."

  "Every society has bullies. What do you do if someone is beating you up?"

  Vanstar's voice sounded worried.

  "The weapons displayed, swords and knives are listed as against the rules for using against another. Even clubs have rules for use. Crystals appear to be the choice of protection. According to Emperor's captain, our weapons are useless on this planet."

  "Are you intending on dropping by at some corner market and buying a bag of crystals?" Vanstar remarked.

  Alexandra was going to explain how a crystal handler channeled energy but decided to let Vanster figure it out. From what the Emperor's crew wrote about those that did use the crystals, it was similar to the Hemalans on Budma. It was a planet that practiced nonviolence, located in Collective space. She doubted a military minded person like Vanstar would find it noteworthy.

  "We're both proficient enough in hand-to-hand, if it comes to that. We don't want to make the same mistake as the Emperor's crew that alienated the officials on Arnica.

  We won't be traveling with a full compliment of soldiers behind us."

  A beep and another star map came up, as they moved into a new space sector.

  "Any messages?" Alexandra asked.

  "No communiqués from anyone, Commander."

  "What about Alan's security, is it blocking them?"

  They should have something coming in during their year of sleep.

  "No, Ma'am."

  "How about message beacons from The Emperor's Last Chance? "

  "Nothing, Commander."

  "Bring up building plans on Alan's castle."

  Another map came up.

  "There's no shuttle in Trojan's cargo bay so I'm guessing he planned to land in his compound."

  "It would be to our advantage if there was more clearing around the ship when we land in the courtyard," Vanster said. "If it were possible to land outside of the compound…"

  "Then the soldiers would know something was wrong. They've had years to figure out what weapons work best here. We'll be dropping into an unknown," Alexandra warned.

  "Our troop…" she hesitated.

  "You mean the Black Rose?"

  "Right. They trained in the same arena as many of Alan's metrasoldiers. They're one species, Ranjans or that's what Captain Miller called them."

  "From Ranja 7F4. Outside of the main travel route in GCFC's sector."

  "Yes."

  "They've had a few years or so to adapt and protect the castle from outside attack and I won't doubt whoever he has in charge, has been figuring out ways to use the soldiers against Alan, and Alan, being a careful paranoid, would do something that would prevent whomever he left in charge here to turn against him."

  "Probably has a control, just like he had with me." Vanster paused, then shook her head. "It wouldn't be a hand or wrist control. We looked over this ship before we got in the pods and didn't find anything that looked like a control. I can tell you for sure, Commander, he wouldn't leave a military person in control," Vanster said with conviction.

  "No. He wouldn't. Too risky." Alexandra studied the holographic image of the castle that slowly rotated. "Once in the courtyard we can head into the castle, and out the exit along the wall, right here. His walls from the outside will be well defended but I think he has monitors on the inside of the castle to keep an eye on his army. The technology from when he setup his castle has advanced greatly so that his monitors can be neutralized. We'll program the ship to emit a signal to disrupt the monitors as we move from the ship to inside the castle. He'll have inside passages which we can use to exit the castle. Bring up the details on the mote."

  Alexandra felt the Sha'Kar's presence. Evanstar gave her a strong feeling of elation which Alexandra thought was because the end to their journey was near. She wondered what Evanstar did for almost a year of nowhere but the ship to travel on.

  Alexandra smiled from Evanstar's amusement at her lack of imagination in what an entity of no form could and could not do.

  The holographic image of the mote had wisps of scary creatures moving about, demonstrating the protection he had set up.

  "A dream box from Alterier. These dots here must be tracking it's placements."

  Alexandra glanced at the monitor as their ship beaconed a signal into space. Both women waited.

  "No return signal," Vanstar said.

  Alexandra keyed in a command. Maybe the yacht was looking for a particular identifier. "There's our answer. Anything not on the list is ignored."

  " Emperors Last Chance isn't on this list."

  "Because she's not on GCFC's ship registry list."

  "Why's that, Commander?"

  "She wasn't built in any registered GCSC shipyards. For someone that has been so thorough it's amazing how this slipped by."

  "Once we exit the castle, do we head to the one colonist group still in tact, Commander?"

  "It's a bad sign when colonists don't assimilate with the locals. Too bad the colonists don't have a…" Alexandra broke off and looked at Vanster. By the widening of her eyes Alexandra guessed she had the same idea. "It would be following the company culture."

  "Biochips," Vanster said with loathing.

  Alexandra knew it was too fresh in Vanstar's mind to have erected any barriers against her own invasion of self by Alan Fermin's implanting a chip in her.

  "It seems like yesterday," Alexandra said.

  "Yes." Embarrassed at her show of weakness, Vanstar started another round of system checks.

  Alexandra understood Vanstar's fear and self recriminations, but did not pursue it, though she knew she would have to deal with it soon, or she would implode.

  Silently she laughed at herself. It was true for herself as well. Whatever Alan had planned for her would have by far been worse, since Vanstar's life was not as valuable to Alan as her. She never could understand why he became obsessed with her since she had not met him until her third year at the Military Academy. She stared down at the monitor that blinked with Icons. For a few moments she saw nothing as she made an effort to let go of dwelling on Alan's madness.

  "It would be logical to assume that a company that deals in the manufacture of metrapeople would also insert a behavioral biochip in it's colonists, that also serves as a locator. I wonder just what their agenda is," Alexandra mused.

  "Taking over a planet?" Vanstar suggested, sounding doubtful.

&n
bsp; Alexandra shook her head perplexed. "With a dozen settlements? Even if they were military, they would have to have something that would give them a very big advantage." Her thoughts returned to her admiral and why she thought only three women could clean up whatever mess the colonists may have caused. What happened to Emperors Last Chance? Was keeping track of Alan's metrasoldiers all they could handle?

  And a bigger question of why is Arnica so important crossed her mind again.

  Alexandra picked up the image of an energy corridor from Evanstar.

  "A star portal like on Merkers? Of course. All planets have direct links to otherplanets. Do they cross space sectors?"

  She received an affirmative from Evanstar. She also picked up that there was a link between Merker's Outpost and Arnica. However, Evanstar's image was of something not stable. This added information gave Alexandra an idea that there was more importance to their assignment on Arnica than they were given.

  "Commander, would you mind if I take a break?" Vanstar asked.

  "No. It's not like we can do anything worthwhile up here. We need to start physical workouts. However, we'll start slowly, if you don't mind."

  Vanstar looked relieved at the offer. "That's where I was heading. There's enough room in the cargo bay."

  Alexandra introduced Vanstar to Chi Gung, Tai Chi exercises, and yoga stretches.

  It was ideal until they had some stamina back. Vanstar did not object.

  "Incoming message," the ship's computer announced five days later.

  Both women were precariously balanced in a judo stance as each was trying to toss the other when the message came in. They sprinted to the bridge. While Vanstar ran security scans on the ship hailing them, Alexandra watched the communication's progress as it was filtered for any subliminal message or virus Alan feared another ship may transmit to him.

  "Computer, by pass 2nd level security scrub," she ordered, impatient to see who was hailing them.

  Vanstar brought up the exterior camera with a large warship filling their screen.