Beyond Varallan

by neetha Napew

  That puzzled me. “Of course I did. What did you expect me to do? Let him die?”

  “Why did you have to save him? You could have let him go with dignity!” He flicked the firing mechanism to ready. “Now all my plans were ruined!”

  “Preserving life is my job, First Scion.” I used the soothing tone I would have with a terrified patient. “Why don’t you tell us about these plans of yours? Maybe we can help sort the whole thing out.” And nail whoever was killing people on board the Sunlace.

  “You already have the evidence, do you not?” The barrel of the weapon shook slightly. “It took months to convince him to leave Furin. Hire men to track his movements. Arrange the transport accident. All that work and time and investment-for nothing!”

  It had nothing to do with the League, after all. Some devoted heir he was. Maybe if I could prod him a little, Junior would get loud enough to attract some attention. Some of those ten thousand guards had to be hanging around here somewhere.

  “He’s your parent, First Scion, and obviously loves you very much,” I said. “How could you even think of harming him?”

  “He has outlasted his rule!” the Furinac screeched. “I should be Patriarch now! If I wait for him to die, I will be too old and sick to rule! As he is now!”

  That was more like it. If Junior kept this decibel level up, the whole Palace staff would come running. I gave him my best confused look. “But why kill me? Why not go shoot him?”

  “She Who Preserves All Life.” The Furinac sneered. “When they find your body with that of my dead parent, they will call you Assassin Who Wore a Cloak of Lies.”

  “No, Scion. That is what you shall be called.”

  The Patriarch’s heir gasped, his proboscis bobbling as he turned his head. Out of the shadows stepped the Patriarch himself, Captain Pnor, and a group of armed guards. No one looked very happy or welcoming now.

  “Put down the weapon,” one of the guards said.

  First Scion made a sort of buzzing yelp of dismay. The weapon in his hands swung from me to the Patriarch to me again.

  “Hi, Patriarch.” I had to get the rifle away from this idiot before someone got a hole blown through them. “Thought I ordered you to stay in bed.”

  “Doctor Torin, Linguist Reever, Pilot Dhreen.” The elderly Furinac didn’t sound shaken at all. “I must apologize for my heir’s discourteous manner and reckless behavior.”

  “Do not distress yourself, Patriarch,” Reever replied. “No harm has been done.”

  “Distress yourself, Patriarch,” I said. I wasn’t as detached as Reever. “If you hadn’t shown up, a lot of harm might have been done by Junior here.” Still might be done.

  “Yes. Doctor, I confess I am as much responsible for this as my heir. At the reception, I mentioned to several of my people that you and Linguist Reever had evidence as to the identity of an assassin.” The old ruler was doing a great job of faking calm confidence. I could see his appendages trembling. All part of the job, I guessed. “I had my suspicions, but to discover the attempt on my life was orchestrated by my own child...” He stared at his heir and shook his head slowly.

  First Scion looked ready to weep. Or shoot someone. Probably both.

  “How did you know someone was trying to kill you, Patriarch?” I edged a step toward First Scion as he stared blindly at the old ruler.

  “We examined the shuttle thoroughly after the accident,” Reever said for him. He glanced at me. Saw what I had in mind. He turned back to the heir, and moved a step so that his body blocked the movement of mine. “You arranged to have the flightshield generator sabotaged, didn’t you?”

  “It should have destroyed the ship!” Junior said. What a prince.

  “Apparently the pilot discovered the malfunction just prior to failure,” Reever said. “He transitioned, ejected the generator before it reached critical mass, and deliberately flew into the meteor swarm.”

  “Too bad he perished,” Dhreen said, watching me, too. “Sounds like my variety of jaunter.”

  Another few feet and I would be within reach of the weapon. If only the First Scion wouldn’t remember he wanted to shoot me first.

  “The pilot did so on my orders,” the Patriarch said. “We did not know if the generator had genuinely failed, or had been deliberately sabotaged in order to render the ship vulnerable to attack, or kill me. In my position, I must assume the worst. I very much regret the sacrifice of his life.”

  “A dangerous way to camouflage a crippled vessel.” Captain Pnor made an eloquent gesture, drawing First Scion’s attention now. I loved it when men were supportive and worked together. Especially when I was trying to disarm someone. “A most effective method, as well.”

  “It does not matter!” The heir finally cracked. “Your rule is finished, Old One Who Should Be Enriching Our Soil! I will end it mys-“

  Last chance. As the heir swung back in my direction, I threw myself forward. I hit the rifle just as he fired. Impact angled the barrel up toward the domed ceiling. A loud boom echoed as the energy pulse hit. Gilded masonry dust rained down on us in a glimmering shower. We wrestled the weapon between us.

  “Let go!” I yelled.

  I heard guards running toward us. Great. I was about to be squashed between the good guys and the bad guy.

  “I will kill you!”

  “You-had your-chance!” I hooked my leg around his lower appendages and threw myself forward. The rifle fired again. My face was so close to the beam I felt the heat sear my cheekbone. We went down together, both of us landing on our sides.

  He lunged. I dodged, and narrowly avoided being stabbed in the throat by his sharp proboscis. So he didn’t want to play fair. Fine.

  I slammed my elbow into the crevice between his hinge-plating. Junior screamed, but didn’t let go. The end of the rifle was between our faces. I jabbed him again, trying to avoid his digestive compartment. No way was I going to operate on this jerk.

  “Give it up!” I said, rolling on top of him. I wasn’t heavy enough to keep him pinned, but he was weaker now. His breath rasped through his spiracles with an audible whistle. I managed to press the weapon closer to his face than mine.

  “The Doctor is correct, Once Scion,” I heard the old ruler say. “Release your weapon.”

  “Once Scion?” The heir’s tone buzzed with new horror.

  “Daddy’s upset with you, Junior,” I said. I kept him down, but he had a death-clutch on the rifle. Guards swiftly formed a ring around us. No one tried to interfere. The business end of the weapon was still too close to our faces. “Do what he says, maybe you can be Prince again.”

  “I will be Patriarch,” he said.

  “No, pal,” I said, jerking on the weapon. No effect. “If you want to get out of this one, think floor-kissing. Lots of floor-kissing.”

  “She Who Preserves All Life,” the former heir said, then buzzed out a faint chuckle. “I will deny you this one.” His appendage slipped down the rifle case. “And tomorrow you will be dead.”

  I couldn’t take my hands off the rifle. I heard the triggering mechanism click.

  “No!” I screamed.

  The Patriarch’s heir jammed the nozzle beneath his proboscis. As the weapon fired, I jerked my face away and squeezed my eyes shut.

  His head exploded, an inch away from mine.

  That night Reever put aside his squeamishness and helped me remove the dead heir’s remains from my upper torso. He stayed with me, too. I suppose all the vomiting I did was the reason. Patiently I explained I wasn’t the squeamish type. I just had a problem combing brain and exoskeletal matter out of my hair.

  I was in good shape, considering I’d nearly had my head blown off. One proximity burn on my left cheekbone. An empty stomach. Nerves that were shattered. Otherwise, I was just peachy.

  I fell asleep watching him watch me. When I woke the next morning, he still occupied the same chair beside my bed.

  “Are you well?” he asked me, sounding tired. I nodded. He rose and le
ft. Well, Reever never was one for a profusion of words.

  We departed Furin that same day. It was a decidedly silent sojourn team that made our very brief farewells, minus all ceremony, and returned to the launch.

  I was as quiet and blank-faced as Reever. Having someone’s face blow up under your nose left a sobering impression. Pnor seemed more disturbed by the First Scion’s muttering about my dying after him than anything else.

  Even Dhreen didn’t say much, until something slammed into the launch. Then he cursed. If we hadn’t been wearing our rigging, the impact would have sent all of us flying across the cabin.

  “Sunlace, sojourn launch is under attack!” Dhreen began weaving and dodging through multiple yellow-orange blast beams. “Sunlace, advise!”

  “Dhreen, four additional mercenary vessels converging on your position!” Xonea’s voice came over the helm console.

  What was Xonea doing at the helm?

  My ClanBrother snapped out more orders. “Sunlace will intercept in three minutes-you must divert to emergency route now!”

  “Execute crash-landing procedures!” Pnor said to the team as he released his rigging. He took position behind Dhreen, who was frantically compensating for the attacking ship and attempting to avoid the others closing in.

  The rest of us prepped the launch by rigging anything that moved with extra restraints. The launch was rocking wildly now. We had to anchor ourselves to the overhead grips to keep our balance. Once geared up, we strapped ourselves back into the rigging.

  Pnor was bending over the display, speaking in a low, urgent tone to Xonea.

  “Reever?” I said. He had moved to sit next to me. “Lie to me. Tell me we’re going to make it.”

  He dipped his head and murmured, “Don’t worry, it will be quick.”

  “Lie to me anyway.”

  Displacer fire was getting heavier. Pnor had closed the viewports and was giving the Oenrallian navigation coordinates from the helm display. The launch shuddered violently when something slammed into the port-side hull panels. An automated warning rang out.

  “Caution. Launch hull tolerance range has been exceeded. Caution. Launch hull tolerance range has been exceeded.”

  The hiss of our interior atmosphere escaping into space was immediate and loud. After a brief argument, Pnor switched places with Dhreen. The Oenrallian was swearing in his native language when he came back to don emergency gear.

  “That stubborn old scrapper!” Dhreen said as he slid the pack straps over his shoulders. “Thinks he can outfly me!”

  “He is the Captain,” Reever said. “He can.”

  “Hull breach!” the display’s audio blared. “Emergency measures! Hull breach! Emergency measures...”

  “Put your breathers on!” I yelled over the audio loop to the others. I turned, hooked an arm around Reever’s neck, and kissed him. His lips were cold against mine. Then I yanked his breather over his face. I turned to the helm. “Captain!”

  He didn’t respond. Pnor was too busy flying through the mercenaries’ salvos. He also wasn’t wearing any emergency gear.

  I released my rigging, grabbed a pack and stumbled toward him. At that moment, a heavy blast struck the launch squarely, throwing me into an interior component panel. The burn on my left cheek exploded with pain. Hot sparks rained down over me.

  The starboard hull plate was slowly bulging out. I heard the Jorenian alloys screaming, connectors tearing. Had to get to him-had to-

  “Pnor!” I screamed with my last breath.

  The hull plate crumpled. The sudden change in pressure discharged the launch’s artificial atmosphere into space. I would have been sucked through the gap myself, but someone grabbed my hair and the back of my tunic and hauled me back. My breather was shoved down over my face.

  Pnor.

  I looked at the helm display, and saw in horror that the Captain had harnessed himself to the seat. He was still guiding the launch, though his body was spasming violently.

  Gravity was gone. My body floated weightless above the launch deck. When I turned my head, I saw Reever was holding on to me. He was the one who had pulled me back. Where there had just been a twenty-foot section of hull was now a jagged-edge hole. Through it, I saw the looming profile of the Sunlace.

  Were we going to make it?

  The launch careened against the bay portal, then slid over the threshold, skidding over the Sunlace’s deck. Gravity reinstated itself and I fell, hard.

  Reever held me up. I had my breather off and was at the helm in another heartbeat.

  Pnor had managed to guide us in just before decompression burst his lungs. Green blood streamed from every orifice. His hands were still clenched over the controls.

  The Captain was dead.

  There was no time to grieve, the ship was still under attack. Xonea had taken over command, operating from level twenty-one. He took the news about Pnor without a blink. I didn’t have time to wait for a reaction, or find out why my confined-to-quarters ClanBrother was suddenly running the ship. After a quick scan to assure the sojourn team had suffered no ill-effects, I ran to Medical.

  The bay was in a state of controlled bedlam. I found Squilyp, who stopped shouting out orders long enough to report.

  “Casualties are coming in from all decks. They’re not being particular about where they hit us this time. We should be transitioning right about-“

  Reality twisted. We both found ourselves, along with a number of nurses, on the deck.

  “-now,” he said, and groaned.

  “We better step up the practice drills,” I said, and pushed myself up on my elbows.

  “There is blood on your face.” The Omorr nodded at my cheek.

  The burn from the rifle blast had split open when I’d tried to get to Pnor. I swiped at it with my tunic sleeve. “Remind me to make you go on the next sojourn.”

  “Your team arrived without incident?”

  “We made it. All but the Captain.” My raw voice earned me a grimace of sympathy. “Come on.” I helped him up. “How many have been brought in so far?”

  “Twenty. There will be more.” He indicated the serious cases that were separated from the minor injuries. “These four first.” He grabbed my arm when I would have started for them. “One of them wants to die, Senior Healer.”

  Not on my ward. “Keep the nurses out of there for now.”

  Two of the four required surgery at once. I shouted for the teams to prepare and scanned the other two. They could wait. I sedated them and went to the first surgical patient.

  Squilyp told me a feedback had created an explosion in the huge banks of tech that ran the ship’s automatic functions. The data programmer’s face and arms were horribly burned, and she had massive respiratory damage.

  “This is Healer Cherijo,” I said as I bent close to her ravaged face. “We’re going to take you into surgery. Don’t be afraid, we’re going to help you. Blink once if you understand.”

  She blinked her scalded eyelids once. I administered sedation, then moved to the next patient.

  He was groaning miserably. A terrible gash across his torso revealed half his internal organs. White eyes opened when I touched him.

  “My... Speaker...”

  “Is busy fighting mercenaries,” I said. So this was the one who wanted to die. “What is your name, ClanCousin?”

  “Yetlo...”

  “Yetlo, I’m going to take care of you. You are not going to embrace so much as an optic light today. Got it?”

  “My... right...”

  “I have decided to render my assistance,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

  I closed my eyes briefly. “One second, Yetlo.” I straightened and turned. “Get out of my Medical Bay. Now.”

  Rogan stood there, cleaner than I’d ever seen him. Not that it made a big improvement.

  “You need help. Your resident can’t keep up with the injured.”

  “The day I consider you help, Rogan, tell them to shoot me into a star,
all right? Leave.”

  “Doctor.” Squilyp joined Rogan. “We could use the hands.”

  I eyed the Omorr. “Fine,” I said. “Then he’s your responsibility. He does not assess patients. Let him suture and dress wounds. Keep a nurse on him while you’re in surgery to make sure he doesn’t screw that up.”

  Rogan didn’t like that, and opened his four lips to tell me so. The Omorr grabbed him and pulled him away.

  “Thank you, Senior Healer,” Squilyp called out over Rogan’s protests.

  “You’re not welcome,” I called back. I bent to Yetlo again. “As you can see, I have enough problems without you wanting to die on me, ClanCousin. What do you say?”

  He looked stubborn. “I... want... my... Spe-“ His head lolled to one side as he lost consciousness.

  “Oops.” Had I accidentally administered the sedation before he could tell me what he wanted? It seemed I had. What a shame. Perhaps Yetlo had been asking for a speech therapist. A nurse appeared beside me, already geared for surgery. “Prep him.”

  “He asked for Eternity, Senior Healer.”

  Another one. I drew myself up to my full height and did an imitation of Joseph Grey Veil.

  “He didn’t ask me, nurse. Prep him, now.”

  While I was scrubbing, Xonea sent an emergency signal to Medical and had one of the residents pull me out of prep. I trotted over to the display, already scowling. The strong, glowering face staring back at me didn’t improve my mood.

  “What?”

  “Status report,” Xonea said. I gave him a brief outline of the casualties and indicated I was going into surgery. “Your hands?”

  “I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t so sure, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Next time you want status, talk to one of the nurses.”

  “I wanted to see you were unharmed.” He smiled briefly. “Command out.”

  Surgery was a bit crowded. Squilyp and I operated simultaneously on the two critical patients, our tables side by side. We shared the scrub team between us, enabling more staffers to deal with the overcrowded ward outside.

  I had to repair fissures in Yetlo’s chest cavity and clean up shards from a half dozen broken ribs. After a quick scan, I found a sizeable bone shard lodged in the wall of his heart. This was not my lucky day.