by Gun Brooke
"I'll give her a general pain reducer. Keep up the pressure on her neck, but let go a bit every ten minutes to allow circulation." Hammad worked swiftly as she spoke, injecting the commodore twice. "Now let's see." Removing Rae's clothes, the ensign revealed the major scrapes and bruises all over the compact frame. They discovered two minor high-energy weapon burns—on one of her legs and below her ribs on the same side. She had also taken a hit in her right shoulder.
Kellen suddenly noticed a large blue swelling on Rae's right hand. "She's fractured something." Husky and barely audible, her own voice sounded foreign to her. "The bastard."
Ensign Hammad was examining the deep wound on the side of Rae's neck. "There's a large wooden splinter in here. I'll need to extract it, but we have a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Leanne asked, standing on the other side of the table and wrapping a blanket around the practically naked woman.
"It's trickling now, but it will probably start gushing when we remove the only thing obstructing it."
"Can you have a deep-tissue fuser ready when you remove it, to fuse the vessel instantly?"
"I'll try. I'm not a doctor."
"We know, Hammad, but you're all we have. If you don't do this, the commodore won't make it."
Kellen trembled as she listened to the other women's discussion. "Do it," she said. "As her wife, I'll make the call." She moved to the opposite side, next to Leanne, who quickly squeezed her waist. "Don't let her die. Just do what needs to be done."
Ensign Hammad grabbed a large set of tweezers in one hand and the deep-tissue fuser in the other. "All right, let's get started, then."
Dahlia stopped inside the door of the officer's mess hall aboard the Kester. Dressed in black, the deep red scarf around her neck her only splash of color, she knew she looked striking and professional.
Over by a large, elliptic table, Ambassador M'Ekar looked at her with disdain written across his face. "I have demanded to talk with someone in authority for days now," he complained, "and they send me a woman?"
"Charming," Dahlia mumbled to her assistants. Turning back to the ambassador, she introduced herself. "My name is Dahlia Jacelon, and to ease your mind, I assure you I'm in authority."
"Oh, for all the saints, not another one." M'Ekar tipped his head back in obvious frustration. "How many of you are there?"
Dahlia gestured for the ambassador to take a seat. "Admiral Jacelon has briefed me." She paused and gave the man a curt smile. "And no, the name is not a coincidence. We're all related. I take it you've encountered my daughter, indirectly at least."
"What can you do for me?" M'Ekar didn't respond verbally to Dahlia's last comment, but his eyes clearly relayed his contempt.
"You must have misunderstood. I haven't come here to do anything for you. I have come to interview you on the matter at hand. You have some explaining to do if you nourish any hope at all about going home."
The man drummed his fingertips on the table between them. SC military police guarded them, and Dahlia sensed their presence did not sit well with the ambassador. From the information she had received, Dahlia knew M'Ekar was sixty-nine Earth years of age. He wore his silver-gray hair down to his shoulders, and his all-white, obviously handmade suit—a long, formfitting jacket over masterfully tailored trousers—emphasized his sharp features. Dahlia thought he must have been handsome in his youth, but life had hardened him. His cynical attitude showed in his calculating eyes, like shining granite, as if he was watching her every move, waiting for her to slip up so he could crush her.
Not impressed about what she had read in the extensive file her husband and SC had put together on the man before her, Dahlia listened to M'Ekar's fanatical raving for exactly twenty seconds before she interrupted. "What are your motives for wanting to rear Armeo M'Aido?"
M'Ekar stopped in mid-sentence. "He's of my wife's blood. I'm all he has."
Dahlia punched in a short note on her handheld computer. "When did you last see him?" She knew the answer but was interested in his reply.
"I've never met the boy. The O'Dal woman kept him from me."
"So when did you learn of his existence?"
"Less than a few months ago. When I heard that Zax and the girl he foolishly fell for had a son—"
"Did you know who the mother was?"
"Not at first. When I learned of her true identity, I was sad Zax had not told his father or his aunt of her nobility."
"What difference would that have made?"
"For him to marry a nobody, a Gantharian country girl...It was beneath him. It reflected badly on the M'Aido name."
Glancing at her computer screen, Dahlia spoke in a soft voice that didn't hide her sarcasm. "Could you not accuse your wife of committing the same faux pas?"
M'Ekar squared his shoulders, flashing an outraged look at her. "What are you talking about?"
"You judge Zax's choice of wife, and yet your own wife, Elinda M'Aido, married you, a country boy from the Onotharian rural areas."
"It does not compare," M'Ekar insisted, two burning spots of red appearing on his pale cheeks.
"Exactly how did you find out about Tereya O'Saral's true identity?"
M'Ekar hesitated briefly. He didn't squirm, but small drops of sweat began to form on his upper lip. Dahlia wondered if the house arrest aboard the Kester was what made the old fox so transparent. All reports described M'Ekar as utterly ruthless and the toughest of negotiators. He had remained as ambassador on Gantharat for many years now, and he hadn't achieved such status by putting his emotions on display like this.
"I admit I held the young woman and Ms. O'Dal under close surveillance."
"When did that start?"
"When my wife's nephew was killed."
Puzzled, Dahlia leaned forward. Something was amiss in M'Ekar's story. "Then how can you say you weren't aware of the child's existence?"
"I knew there was a child. I was not sure it was Zax's. The two girls lived a pretty wild life, being orphaned early on. Tereya could have had more.. .partners, in her life."
Concealing her contempt for the man in front of her, Dahlia only nodded and kept taking personal notes. Her assistants recorded these interviews, but she always made notes on her own as well when something special sprang to mind. This lifelong habit had saved negotiations on many occasions.
"And then you realized who she was...not a promiscuous Gantharian country girl, but the last of the O'Sarals. Apart from Armeo, of course."
"Exactly," M'Ekar answered quickly, the sarcasm obviously wasted on him. "My agents confirmed it, finding enough DNA to prove it conclusively. After that, the boy's DNA showed his double heritage."
"Wait. Back up a bit, Ambassador. Do you mean you checked Tereya's DNA strands? How could you do that? And the boy's?"
M'Ekar now rose from his chair and paced back and forth. "We obtained samples of her blood at the hospital. And the child...We ordered a school health official to assist in this important determination process."
"Dodgy methods, Ambassador." Dahlia looked at him, knowing her eyes betrayed nothing. "Something in your story doesn't add up. I'm not a criminal investigator, but I know when someone's lying to me."
She rose from her chair and placed both hands on the table between them. "Rest assured, M'Ekar," she said confidently, knowing full well it was a crude insult from a diplomat to deliberately not use his title, "I will get to the bottom of this. You may think your homeworld's influence means you are safe and soon to be released. I want to emphasize how foolish it is for you to delude yourself. You are not going anywhere. I'm working directly for the elders of the Council, who are not as easily swayed in your favor as the representatives of the planets dependent on your empire's resources."
M'Ekar looked as shaken as it was possible for a man of his stature. "Are you leaving?"
She hoped her harsh words and barely concealed threat to keep him for an extended period of time would make him more eager to feed her information the next day. Sooner or lat
er he would slip up. "Oh, don't worry. We'll see a lot of each other during the upcoming days. This was merely an introduction. Good day."
Walking toward the door, Dahlia glanced at the ambassador. He did not look pleased.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Owena appeared in the doorway to the makeshift sick bay. "Lieutenant D'Artansis, take the helm. Lieutenant Ng'Ar has medical training and will help out in here. We need to get out of here before the Onotharians send reinforcements. There's not much time."
"Aye, ma'am." Leanne gave Kellen's arm another squeeze. "She'll be okay."
Kellen looked down at her wife's bleeding, bruised body. The compact frame now seemed fragile and beyond repair. "She has to," she whispered as Leanne and Owena left the mess hall.
"I have the splinter in sight," Ensign Hammad reported, looking into a device inserted into the deep wound. "I can reach it with the forceps, but it's a risky procedure."
"I have the deep-tissue fuser ready, Ensign," a new voice said.
Kellen glanced up and saw Lieutenant Ng'Ar standing ready with the fuser. Short and stocky, he oozed confidence and a much-needed calm.
"Remove the splinter when I tell you to," he instructed. "And move your hands quickly out of the way."
"Understood, sir." Hammad closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to brace herself. "Ready."
"Good." Lieutenant Ng'Ar moved close to the ensign, placing the deep-tissue fuser's nozzle only millimeters above the torn skin. "Pull."
Ensign Hammad pressed a button on the device to engage the forceps's claw and quickly backed out of the way, holding the offending piece of wood.
Lieutenant Ng'Ar moved the fuser in small circles inside the wound. "This should take care of the rent in the artery," he surmised. "There's nothing else we can do. How's her blood pressure?"
Kellen studied the portable monitor that sat on a chair next to the table. "Eighty over seventy." She had to steady herself when the Liberty's propulsion system began to roar and whine. When the ship lurched to the left, the inertial dampeners couldn't keep up with its rapid movements. Kellen grabbed the table, which was bolted to the floor. Holding on to the unconscious woman, she stared with dry, burning eyes at the lieutenant. "Be careful with the fuser! We're banking again!"
Lieutenant Ng'Ar stretched his free arm around the commodore's body and curled his fingers around the railing that surrounded the edge on the opposite side of the table. The Liberty turned violently, almost stalling, before it finally straightened up.
"Damage report." Owena's voice echoed through the shipwide comm system.
"How is the commodore?" Ensign Hammad was struggling to rise from the floor.
"We managed to keep her from flying off the table. Blood pressure again, Ms. O'Dal?" Lieutenant Ng'Ar asked before he turned to his subordinate. "You all right, Ensign?"
Hammad nodded and began to wrap a thermo blanket around the commodore.
"Still eighty-five over seventy."
"Keep an eye on it. It should rise. The commodore has lost a lot of blood, but we can replace some of it with synthetic plasma. We stored some at the bottom of the cool-shelves in the galley, Ensign."
Hammad rushed toward the kitchen and returned with several containers. On top of each container was a device meant to attach to the patient. He gave one to Kellen. "Anywhere you can find a vein, ma'am. Just press the blue tag against the skin and it will do the rest. I also brought saline and glucose."
Kellen's fingers trembled as she searched Rae's uninjured hand for a vein, finding them thin, like silk filaments, and almost invisible due to blood loss. Hoping she was doing the procedure correctly, she pressed the blue tag onto the back of Rae's hand, and to her relief the locking mechanism made a sucking noise and attached to the skin. The readings on top of the container showed infusion was underway.
Hammad found a vein on the commodore's left foot and attached the blue tag. She smiled toward Kellen. "Two units of synthetic plasma going in." As Hammad looked over at Lieutenant Ng'Ar, her smile faded. "How is she doing, sir?"
"Step up here and scan the wound. The scanner imbedded in the fuser says it's doing its job, but I want to make sure. Blood pressure, Ms. O'Dal?"
"Ninety-five over eighty and climbing." Kellen took a medical scanner and moved it over the wound. She turned it toward Hammad so the other woman could interpret what was on the display.
"The rift is closing, sir."
"Excellent."
Kellen and Ensign Hammad cleaned the wounds and healed as much as they could with regular derma fusers. When only the fractured hand remained, the two women looked to Lieutenant Ng'Ar, who was inserting the deep-tissue fuser into its casing.
"The bones will have to be reset." Kellen gestured toward the battered hand. "We can't just knit them together the way they are now."
"You're right," Lieutenant Ng'Ar said.
"I'm not qualified to do that, sir," Ensign Hammad cautioned. "I've seen it done, but..."
"That makes you the most qualified in this room, Ensign. We can't risk waiting until we reach Gamma VI." The lieutenant's cherubic face looked grim. "Do your best. Set the bones and knit them together. It will ease the commodore's pain if the bones are aligned. The way they sit now, the jagged ends are likely to hurt the tissue around them, as well as rub against each other."
His round face softened. "Just do it, Ensign. Dr. Meyer can always perform surgery to correct minor misalignments once we get back."
Kellen watched as Ensign Hammad took Rae's bruised hand and carefully manipulated the broken bones by pulling the fingers one by one, blessing the fact Rae was unconscious and oblivious to the pain. Hammad ran the bone-knitter across the fractures, and then Kellen helped wrap the hand in a cooling orthosis to secure it and keep the swelling down.
"I'll arrange for some belts to strap the commodore to the table. We need to keep her very still when we go to tachyon-mass drive."
Lieutenant Ng'Ar walked over to the door. "Keep an eye on the oxygen saturation and blood pressure. I'll be quick."
As she looked at Rae's white face, Kellen felt her chest constrict. Knowing this was a high-risk mission was one thing; standing here watching Rae in this state was something entirely different. Because she always took pride in her self-control, Kellen was painfully aware of how fear flooded her system.
Leaning over her wife, she placed a soft kiss on her cold, sweaty forehead. "Please, Rae, don't give up. We have what we came for and are on our way home." She tucked the thermo blanket closer around her beloved to keep her from falling further into shock. Her voice was a husky whisper. "I can't lose you. Do you hear? I can't."
Rae gave no sign that she heard her. Lying motionless, she seemed distant and untouchable, as if she would never wake up.
Owena's voice, grave and clipped, came through the comm system. "All hands prepare for tachyon-mass drive. Space corridor secured. Engaging drive in two minutes."
Lieutenant Ng'Ar returned with three long leather-mix belts. Wrapping them around the commodore and the table, he tightened them so her limp body couldn't move.
As she looked around her, Kellen saw nothing she could use to attach herself to the table. Ensign Hammad took a seat next to Ng'Ar, just inside the door, and was about to follow his example and put on the belt hanging from the bulkhead when she stopped halfway. Removing her weapon harness, she tossed it to Kellen. "Here, ma'am. Use that."
"Thank you." Kellen fastened the weapon harness to the railing around the edge of the table. Wrapping it around her waist and tightening the clasp, she leaned over Rae's unconscious body, covering it with her own while she waited for the drive to engage.
The hum accelerated to a loud whining sound, and then the Liberty speared through space. The weapon harness dug into Kellen's waist as her feet left the floor. Her sweaty palms slipped on the railing; she was sliding down Rae's body. Clutching at the edge of the table, Kellen dug her nails into it, desperate to stay with the motionless woman beneath her.
The Li
berty reached full tachyon-mass drive. Reverberating around them like a caged animal about to leap toward freedom, the starship plunged through space on a preset trajectory. Kellen felt nauseous. Bile rose in her throat as the vessel's tremors became faint and barely noticeable.
Ensign Hammad unclasped her belt and walked over to the table. "Here, let me help you, ma'am." With gentle hands she helped Kellen move off the table and unfasten the gun belt. "Are you all right, Ms. O'Dal?"
"I'm fine." Kellen glanced at the monitor next to the table. "Her blood pressure is stable."
"You're bleeding, ma'am." Lieutenant Ng'Ar came up to them. "Let me bandage it."
"Of course." Numb, Kellen allowed the others to guide her to a chair beside the table. The lieutenant quickly cleaned a stinging wound on her forehead. She didn't care about the minor pain. Her eyes were fastened on the face of the woman lying very quietly next to her.
"Wake up, Rae," she mouthed as she felt a single tear dislodge from her eyelashes. "Please, wake up."
Admiral Jacelon regarded Commander Todd with a cold gaze as invisible shivers began at his spine and reverberated throughout his body. "You're sure?"
"Yes, sir. Our spy vessels have transmitted disturbing data collected from SC probes in the Gantharat System."
"What the hell's going on, then?" Suddenly feeling every one of his years, Ewan wanted to sit down but remained on his feet, squaring his jaw. He knew that the spy vessels, a highly controversial asset, monitored the neighboring systems and gathered intelligence from miniscule probes hidden among space debris and in asteroid fields. Transmitting on rotating subspace channels, they were virtually impossible to detect or intercept.
"Two days ago, an Onotharian covert team attacked our away team, sir. They moved in with cloaked shuttles. We've never seen those before."
"And where is our team now?"
