Shalia's Diary Omnibus

by Tracy St. John

  At last he understood that I did not love him. That I would kill him.

  He jumped through the hatch as I fired. Fuck, even beaten to a bloody pulp and missing an arm, he was fast. I missed.

  It was then that both cold-blooded Shalia and normal Shalia disappeared from sight. A third Shalia took over. She was raging and bloodthirsty, cursing the fact that she hadn’t murdered her ex-lover, that he remained alive. A Shalia who carried such a pure hatred that she only wanted to bathe in oceans of her enemy’s blood.

  With an animal’s howl, I raced through the cabin, flinging myself outside to hunt down my prey. He’d been moving fast enough that his blood hadn’t left a trail right away, but the first gory splash was in sight. Two more splashes past the tail of the shuttle kept me on track until the splashes became a crimson line, arrowing through the hardpacked dirt with Nang staggering at its end.

  He was trying to escape me. Still running, a slow, drunken weaving that I had no problem gaining on.

  He heard me coming. He turned, though he kept retreating, my quarry run to ground. “Don’t, Shalia. Don’t. I love you.”

  His expression was filled with fear. Remorse, maybe. I can hardly believe he’d found that kind of lucidity, however. I was so far past caring or feeling anything but the need to destroy, it left no impression on me whatsoever.

  No, every fiber of my being was dedicated to a single purpose: ending the nightmare, once and for all.

  The dark shadow that passed over us elicited little more than momentary hesitation on my part. Nang lifted his gaze to the arriving shuttle, an older model not quite as decrepit as Clan Denkar’s had been. “Help me! Help me!” he screamed as it banked to land a few yards distant.

  I sighted. I shot.

  Nang must have been a favorite of the gods, whomever they are. I swear, that man got more than his fair share of lucky breaks that day. Or maybe not. I guess that all depends on the point of view.

  He was gesturing wildly as I pulled the trigger, his wobbling legs jerking haphazardly as he attempted to run to the arriving shuttle. He fell as I shot. Blood sprayed and he went down, but his shriek confirmed it hadn’t been a lethal hit.

  More sounds of arriving vessels, these behind me. Some voice on high called, “This is Lobam Security Force. All persons on the ground, drop your weapons!”

  “Fuck you,” I snarled. I trotted, attempting to catch up to Nang, who was still trying to reach the first shuttle. He’d climb to his feet, stagger it a couple of steps, and then fall.

  I would not miss again. I was determined to get pointblank close to him.

  A jolt of pain ran up my arms, and the blaster went flying. The next thing I knew, Hatzeg had his arms wrapped around me, lifting me off my feet and yanking me to face the other direction.

  There was a lot of yelling, angry voices raised, including mine. The noise of shuttles arriving and landing. More shouts, orders being yelled over the voices screaming for Nang’s life.

  “Let me go! I’m going to kill him! We’ll never be safe until he’s dead!” I shrieked, kicking Hatzeg with all my strength. When that didn’t work, I slammed the back of my skull into his face.

  Some part of me rejoiced to hear his nose give way. His forehead was pretty solid stuff though, and my aching skull doubled its complaints as we clunked like a couple of coconuts.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, and his grip loosened. I swept his ankle, and he went down.

  I turned, attempting to figure out where the blaster had gone. My attention was diverted by the circle of law enforcement officers fending off my clan and clan-in-law. When I saw Gilsa trying to shove through, my initial concern was where she’d stashed Anrel. However, Imdiko Iramas wasn’t among the furious. He’d stayed on board the shuttle with the baby.

  Thinking about Anrel didn’t end the urge to kill Nang, but it did dissipate the mindless rage. I was lucid enough to grasp that the fight was lost. The cordon of enforcers was too thick for us to shove through, and more of them were arriving every second.

  Nang lived. I had lost. That’s how it felt. My only hopeful thought was, he could still die.

  I glanced down at Hatzeg. He stared up at me, sitting on his ass, awe covering his ugly, but somehow wonderful features. The son of a bitch had stopped me, but I couldn’t hate him for it. He was doing his job. I offered him a hand up.

  “Come on, big guy. Let’s calm the rest of our people down before Lobam’s finest decides they have to resort to drastic measures.”

  He didn’t take my hand…he had to salvage a little of that Nobek pride after I’d knocked him down…but the gaze of respect kept me from taking offense. With him on his feet again, I directed my attention to my family.

  “Hey. Hey! Back off and let these party poopers do their job. Come on, guys. HEY! YOUR MATARA IS TALKING TO YOU! CLAN SEOT, FALL IN!”

  My strident shriek, which any fishwife would have been proud to bellow, claimed not just my clan’s attention, but everyone else’s. Fanged faces turned my way, over which a constellation of purple eyes hovered.

  “Leave him,” I said tiredly. “Maybe he’ll do us all a favor and die anyway.”

  In an instant, Seot and Cifa were in front of me, their arms surrounding me. My Imdiko went from livid maniac to sobbing mess as he gently kissed the swollen places where Nang had hit me. “My Matara. My poor Matara, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to stop him.”

  Over his shaking shoulder, I watched Larten approach with slow measured steps. He looked murderous as fuck, but he gazed at me with fierce pride. “Poor Matara? Not at all. My strong, brave, warrior Matara,” he said when he drew close. “You had him, my love. You had him, but fate kept him from your justice.”

  “I’m grateful fate or whatever let you live,” Seot breathed. “My Shalia, I’m too overwhelmed with anger and joy and regret and terror to say anything of sense. All I can say at this moment is that I love you, and I’ve never been so relieved than to have you here with me.”

  Clan Denkar came close, as did Nobek Tiron. They greeted the incoming paramedics with hateful snarls, but they didn’t stop them from gathering around Nang. They also didn’t intrude on my reunion with my clan until Cifa stopped weeping over my injuries and Seot was able to put a quarter-inch between us. He’d been clutching me so close that we should have turned into one person.

  My Dramok and Nobek fathers-in-law cupped my cheek…the unslapped and unpunched side…in a demonstration reserved for fathers and daughters. Gilsa folded me to her breast and didn’t let me go for almost a minute. I’ve since learned that’s the traditional mother-to-daughter embrace, except it doesn’t usually last so long.

  There was no talking for a while. We stared at the knot of medics and cops who surrounded Nang and watched us for any further violence. I was the recipient of the most intense of the scrutiny. I didn’t flinch. I’d meant to kill Nang, and I stood by that decision. As far as I was concerned, I had no other choice.

  We watched until they took him away on a hover gurney. Larten and Barun exchanged a smirk at the bloody mess I’d made of Nang. I had not just taken his arm off. My second shot demolished his other hand and a portion of his thigh. As they raced with his now-unconscious body to the ambulance shuttle, a medic shouted for them to get a stasis chamber online.

  I didn’t smirk. I felt no joy, no glory, no victory. I felt no guilt, even with a sudden memory of my first encounter with Nang.

  He’d stood outside the doorway of my quarters at the rescue site on Earth, so big he’d had to duck to come in. He’d overwhelmed me with his size and presence, scared me with his aura of unstoppable strength. Then he’d smiled, and I’d glimpsed something beyond the fearsome exterior. His outrage at what Earther women had suffered at the hands of my planet’s government and belief system had drawn me closer.

  Without guilt, I’d done my best to kill him, because all that he’d been—all that he could have been—had been destroyed before he showed up on Lobam in pursuit of a relationship that didn’t exist. No
doubt the seed of Nang’s demise had been planted before our first encounter a year and a half ago. Though I’d hastened its growth by becoming the object of Nang’s obsessions, I believe he would have ultimately self-destructed anyway. At least he hadn’t done so over a woman who wasn’t as prepared as I was.

  I watched them take him away, with a full complement of officers to guard him despite the fact he would be in full stasis. Or maybe they wanted to guard him from me.

  A medic gave me a preliminary check, voiced his opinion that I needed to have a full workup done at the hospital, and tried to bundle me off into a second ambulance shuttle.

  “I’m leaving with my clan,” I informed him…and the enforcement officers watching and waiting to subject me to endless rounds of questioning once the doctors were done. “They’ll take me to the hospital.”

  “Matara, perhaps that would not be wise.” It was a cop who said this, his tone warning. I had a few things to answer for, I assumed. Nang’s condition was horrific, and I’d been spotted hunting him down with the clear intent to kill.

  I wasn’t cowed in the least. After what I’d been through? And not just with Nang. I’d encountered a plenteous helping of hell in the last couple of years, and I was still standing. Legal issues? Fuck ‘em.

  I pointed to Imdiko Iramas, who was bringing Anrel to me, with Dramok Utel from the restaurant peeking out of the hatch at us—I guess the shuttle belonged to him. Anrel shrieked a happy welcome to me, though I was a lumpy, swollen version of her mother. “Do you see that child? That’s who I fought to protect.” I hesitated, hating to tell my clan this way, but it would impress the frowning officers. “As well as the child I carry. Right now, I want to be with my baby and the fathers of my unborn.”

  A chorus of sharply inhaled breaths all around me. My clan moved closer to me, touching me and glaring at the police, ready to challenge any attempts to take me into custody.

  It wasn’t the males the enforcers needed to worry about however, and I reminded them of that. “I have decided to go to the hospital in the company of my child and clan. We’ll meet you there, and I will answer your questions at my earliest convenience. Thank you, officers.”

  I didn’t miss Gilsa’s approving grin as I cuddled my baby close and marched to the shuttle. My clan followed after me. No one, not the medic nor the officers, called me back. After all, this was the Besyu District of Lobam, and the law knows its place there.

  I had not mentioned my pregnancy to gain the sympathy of the police. I’d revealed it as a warning—when it came to me defending my children and my need to be with them in a crisis, I was a force to reckon with. It was meant as a reinforcement of what I’d done to Nang. Fortunately for them, they received the message loud and clear.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that sane Kalquorian men know better than to fuck with a mother. They’re smart that way.

  And for those too far gone to get that? They pay the price, with no allowance given for mercy. If Nang ever escapes and comes after me and mine again, that lesson will be his last.

  June 15

  Another month, another party.

  Okay, so it wasn’t just any old party. My clanning ceremony…the first of two, for heaven’s sake…is not a trivial event. I don’t mean to sound as if it were. Coming on the heels of late April’s ‘we’re having a baby’ party (thrown once the pregnancy was confirmed) and mine and Anrel’s birthday celebrations last month…I’m reaching festive overload. Especially if I add in the rather somber dinner we held when Nang was remanded to a colony for the criminally insane at the edge of empire space.

  So—Nang. Since I haven’t updated my journal in some time, I should note down all that happened on that front before I move on to the happier stuff.

  I wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing despite law enforcement witnessing my determined attempt to kill Nang. In fact, Officer Breft has told me I’ve become a legend to Lobam Security Force. “They said if you ever need a job, it’s yours,” he laughed. “The commanding officer was begged to let you finish Nang off instead of stepping in to save him. His only reason for not doing so was the extra paperwork involved.”

  Ah, those bloodthirsty, administrative-duty-hating Nobeks. And protective, too. It turns out the only reason they wanted to stick so close to me was to be certain I wasn’t hurt, not to charge me.

  As for Nang himself: well, obviously, he survived. Barely, but he lives. Now that several weeks have gone by, I’m not sure how to feel about that. Because he did the whole stalker thing against a woman and child, he’s not been allowed prosthetics to replace his arm, hand, and the leg I rendered useless. I suppose he’s as harmless as someone can be on this side of the grave.

  Along with that, he is under tight security, on a moon that no inmate has ever escaped from. Two guards to every prisoner, every second of the day, in a dorm that also has guards in an attached sealed room. If trouble breaks out in the bloc, they send in a shockwave to knock everyone out. More security stations orbit the moon, with instructions to destroy any ship leaving without the proper credentials and codes. The empire keeps the sickest, most violent element under strict control.

  Since it’s a psychiatric facility they’ve locked Nang up in, there is some hope he’ll recover his sanity. When I voiced concerns about him pretending to pull himself together in order to come for me and those I love, Breft reassured me in confidentiality.

  “Some people, especially those who threaten women and children, are never released no matter how they’ve seemed to recover. It may not be right or fair to do so, but we don’t want to take chances. If the system’s flawed, we prefer it not to be at the cost of innocent lives.”

  For all intents and purposes, Nang is buttoned up for keeps. I hope so. Just in case, I’ll continue to train. If that means dancing around in a workout room with Larten with practice knives when I’m 100 years old, so be it.

  So anyway, the clanning ceremony, part one. There will be another celebration when my dads return to Kalquor in a couple of months. Honestly, we could have waited and had one. But after Nang tried to cart me off, Cifa needed a concrete acknowledgment that I was with the clan, safe and sound, forever.

  Okay. It helped me feel better too. It had that effect on all of us.

  One thing about having a ceremony now was that I could do so without the baby bump. Thank heavens the erotic stink I put out when I’m expecting is almost gone too. The timing couldn’t have been better.

  We absconded with one of Cifiler’s midsized ships for the celebration. More amenities, but less charm than the little yacht we’d sailed on when my clan pled their case to be the men in my life…but still, very, very amazing.

  Cifa had asked for details on an Earther-style wedding and fell in love with the whole pomp and circumstance of a full-on celebrity event. Our second will not be nearly so extravagant, but I have to say, I did enjoy the fuss. I’d initially resisted because I’d heard such affairs were more work than joy for a bride, but with Cifa shouldering almost all of the tasks, I got to have most of the fun.

  The stateroom where I and my bridesmaids readied for the ceremony was a riot of fancy dresses, vanities with cosmetics piled high, giggles and carefully measured glasses of shel so we didn’t end up drunk before the rite. Candy, Katrina, and Hina should not have been a cohesive looking group, what with their different body shapes and coloring, yet the stylist Cifa had hired to dress them made it work. The dresses were different colors to flatter my girls, but in jewel tones that worked beautifully together. The styles were similar, but cut right for each figure. Katrina and Candy wore insanely high heels and Hina wore flats so they were closer to the same size. My Earther pals practiced for two weeks on their ‘stilts’ so they wouldn’t fall flat on their faces. I felt bad that they went through all that for the over-the-top pageantry, but nobody appeared to mind.

  “It’s how I imagined a royal wedding would be,” Candy gushed, delighted with the whole affair. “When Kalquor recognizes the validi
ty of nontraditional clannings, I’m having Cifa plan my ceremony to Stidmun.”

  Helping to keep us on task were the ringmaster trio of Joelle, Elwa, and…cue the gasps…my mother, Eve. Joelle and Elwa did most of the corralling, going hands-on with assisting the dressing, makeup, and hair. Mom sat in a hoverchair near the middle of the room, looking very Queen Bee with a new hairstyle and a sparkling silver dress that was more frou-frou than anything I’d ever seen her wear before. She’s doing well considering all she’s been through, but she’s fragile enough that we wouldn’t let her do too much. She’s weak on one side from the stroke she suffered on Earth, a condition she probably won’t fully recover from. She can yell like a dockhand though.

  “Shalia, stop gabbing and sit down so someone can fix your hair. Candy, are you planning to pose in front of the mirror all day, or get a move on? Hina and Katrina, stop whispering about sex positions to use during pregnancy. Elwa, find a rope and tie all of these twits down, or they’ll never be ready within the year, much less this afternoon.”