“And she hasn’t tried to free herself?”
“I have no idea, but consider her problem. She has a husband and daughter at risk, plus every subject in the kingdom. Rather a large number of hostages for her good behavior, wouldn’t you say?”
“Mallik,” Tal muttered. “I still think like a Fleet captain, don’t I?”
Kass offered a wry smile. “Not always,” she assured him.
“So what kind of person is this Mondragon if he escaped and left all those people behind?”
“A wise man. An asset of infinite potential.”
“A wise man who practices peace?” Tal mocked. “What good will he be?”
“Ah,” Kass exclaimed, “I have given you the wrong impression. I never said the Sorcerer Prime was benign. Only the ParaPrime.”
“So?”
“The Sorcerer Prime is always chosen from among Psyclid’s oldest families, those with their origins obscured by time. The Sorcerer Prime is supposed to be benign, but it is also his duty to learn all the old arts of so-called black magic as well, for how else can he deal with evil if he does not understand the ancient skills?”
“You’re telling me there are evil Psyclids?” Tal said with a perfectly bland face. “I thought you people were perfect. Weird, but perfect.”
“Do not tease,” Kass snapped. “You know quite well there is always evil. And we rely on our Sorcerer Prime to keep it under control.”
Tal gulped his ullali in one long swallow, thumped the glass down onto the table. “And this sorcerer of yours does that by tossing around a little black magic whenever he feels like it.”
“Whenever it’s necessary,” Kass countered sternly.
“Mondragon’s going to turn Regulon fighters into slimeworms, Fleet ships into grizzoids?”
“Don’t be absurd. It doesn’t work that way. Believe me, it’s not that easy.”
“But Mondragon practices black magic, and you’re going to marry him.”
“I am not.”
“You told me—”
“I told you we were betrothed. I did not say I was going to marry him.”
“Just have a child with him.”
Kass sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, and scowled. “Jagan Mondragon is part of my life, but I never said he didn’t terrify me as much as everyone else. Which is why I’m determined never to go to his bed. Both for myself and for what might result.” Kass gulped a breath and continued. “That does not, however, keep me from recognizing that he is Psyclid’s strongest hidden asset. I promise you, Jagan’s talents, combined with K’kadi’s and mine, will be the greatest weapons the rebellion can possibly have.”
“And how do we know he’s willing to join the rebellion?” Tal asked after several moments of silence.
“If he’s reluctant . . . then I must be bait.”
Chapter 18
How did she do it, Tal wondered, this fragile-appearing female who didn’t quite reach his shoulder? From the first time he’d watched her in mock battle, handling Tac as if she’d been born to it, she’d had the confidence, the pride—yes, call it arrogance—to face him one on one. He’d seen her struggle a time or two with attempts to play the lowly ensign, but her humble mode never lasted long. His little Psyclid considered herself the equal, if not a wee bit better, than Tal Rigel, son of Fleet Admiral Vander Rigel, and descendant of a long and distinguished line of powerful Regulons on both sides of his family.
Which meant . . . All we Psyclids have left is our dignity . . . and perhaps a secret or two. Which suggested one of Kass Kiolani’s secrets was that she was as well-born and privileged as himself. Or was she being considered for the next—what was the name—something-prime? ParaPrime, that was it. Second only to the queen. That, and his being damned as a Regulon, would account for why she occasionally looked at him like the emperor to a lackey.
And then there was the problem that Kass was gifted with strange powers, and he was not. An off-putting thought for a man taking a woman on their first actual date. And determined not to repeat the fiasco of their night on Tat.
At the end of their meeting on the engineering deck that afternoon, Tal had ventured his luck and invited Kass to dine with him in X-33’s only pretense to luxury, the Aurora Dome on the space station’s top deck. Kass, looking more than a little startled by his shift from a secret meeting in the bowels of the ship to openly displaying his preference for her company, had finally said yes. And without giving him any sass.
Maybe there was hope for them yet.
Now, here they were, seated under the canopy of a star-filled universe, a pristine white cloth, crystal stemware, genuine china plates, silver utensils, and a flickering candle spread out between them, their wine glasses filled with a vintage yrak from vines grown on the slopes of the far-distant Caroli system. And the ambiance was working.
Psyclids loved beauty and serenity, and Kass proved no exception. Tonight he’d not only surrounded her with the best the station had to offer, he’d put on Captain Kane’s best, a black shirt and pants of the finest fabrics, augmented by a chain of pure gold and one golden earring. And Kass? She took his breath away. Until now, the closest he’d come to seeing her dressed up was the outfit she’d worn on the day of her interrogation, what he thought of as The Day of the Snake. Tonight, she wore a flowing calf-length gown the color of the midnight sky. What appeared to be real diamonds glinted around her neck and in her ears. And where did Kass Kiolani acquire diamonds? Or such a stylish gown so far from home? Forever a mystery, his little Psyclid.
But the only thing that mattered was that her natural arrogance, as well as her stiff-necked wariness, was melting before his eyes, turning her into as delectable a morsel as any man was ever privileged to see. How had she ever thought she could be a warrior . . .
Tal poured more wine into Kass’s glass. She peeped at him from under her long black lashes, amber eyes teasing. Trying to get me drunk, Captain?
Tal almost dropped the bottle. He’d heard the words loud and clear, but her lips never moved. “Don’t do that!” Oh, fyd, he hadn’t really said that out loud. Just when he was making a little progress.
Kass was looking at him as if he’d just turned into a krall. “Don’t do what?” she inquired slowly, as if humoring a mad man.
“I beg your pardon, I thought you said something.”
“And just what do you think I said?”
Tal waved a hand, attempting to brush their exchange away. “It must have been the look in your eyes . . . I conjured words you never said. My apologies. Let’s forget it, shall we?
Her face solemn, Kass leaned forward, projecting her whisper across the table. “Tell me the exact words, I need to know.”
Puzzled, Tal stared at her a moment. Just when he’d managed a small step toward renewing her approval, another bone of contention cropped up. Mallick! He really didn’t need this. “It was all in my head, Kass. Probably a guilty conscience. I thought you said, ‘Trying to get me drunk, Captain?’ Kass . . . ?” She was just sitting there, gazing at her empty soup bowl.
Their server arrived, deftly replacing their soup bowls with the Aurora Dome’s specialty of the day, grilled steri filet, fresh from the green pastures of Pollux Four. Kass didn’t seem to notice.
Fine. Over the last few years, he’d forced himself to learn patience. Even if their dinner grew cold, he would wait until Kass was ready to move forward.
“Compared to many on Psyclid,” she said at last, “I am a mediocre empath at best and even less skilled at telepathy. With considerable effort and practice, I reached the point where I could exchange thoughts with those with skill much greater than mine. But at no time should I be strong enough to be heard by someone of middling talent or less, and most particularly not by someone with no empathic or telepathic skills at all.”
“Like a Reg captain.”
“Yes.” Kass pursed her lips, fingered her wine glass. “But the truth is . . . what you heard is exactly what I thought. You may be righ
t,” she added hastily. “Getting me drunk was exactly what you were trying to do, so you correctly interpreted the gleam in my eye, but . . . there’s another explanation.”
“Which is . . . ?”
Kass suddenly straightened up, offering him a brilliant smile. “I’ll save that for later. At the moment, I believe our food is getting cold.”
Tal wasn’t sure which he wanted more—to make love to her or wring her scrawny Psyclid neck. But before them was the best meal they’d had since leaving Blue Moon. And if he was going to make any headway with Kass Kiolani, he was going to have to play her game. As S’sorrokan, he’d had to learn deception. And this was just a more benign aspect of it. He’d let Kass win all the way to the bedroom . . . and then it was his turn.
Kass floated out of the Aurora Dome, leaning into Tal’s strong length as the lift plunged them back to midstation and its ring of docking bays. Soulmates. Impossible, but true. The euphoria of discovering her fantasies come to life, augmented by the wine bubbling in her veins, threatened to overwhelm her. How to explain to Tal that on Psyclid soulmates could communicate telepathically, even if their skill levels were low?
It was a mistake, nothing more than coincidence. Had to be.
Yet tonight Tal had openly acknowledged her, walked her off the ship in full view of at least a hundred officers and crew also bent on a night out on X-33. By the time they got back, the whole ship would know.
They already knew. After she spent the night with Tal on Tatarus, what else could they think?
Careful, careful. Fantasies, soft and fluffy; reality, full of stings and barbs.
The lift doors slid open, Tal ushered her out, keeping his arm around her waist as they turned right and headed down the long corridor toward Astarte’s docking bay. He felt so good, so right. If they were headed for Tal’s quarters instead of her own, she wasn’t going to object. The goddess knew she’d tried to be sensible . . .
Show you a flash of crystal and silver, throw in a bottle of good wine . . .
Shut up!
Easy lay.
Kass sucked in a breath before telling her inner nag where to go when warning signals that had been flashing in her brain ever since they exited the lift finally kicked in. “Run!” she shouted, grabbing for Tal’s hand just as something whizzed by her ear.
“Fyd!” Tal zigzagged down the corridor, pulling her with him. He tried the next door into the station. Locked. They glanced at the docking bays to their left. Dark and empty. Pounding feet behind them echoed clearly over their harsh breathing. Two men, armed and gaining ground. Kass’s short legs were holding them back. Still running and zigging, she looked up. Two floors above, a gallery jutted out over the corridor they were on, part of a series of observation areas on the same level with Station Control.
Tal spoke into his comm unit, but no one from Astarte was going to reach them in time. A soft groan. Tal stumbled, kept running.
“Tal?”
“No problem. Keep moving!”
Once again, Kass looked up at the gallery. Could she? Dare she try?
A laser flash so close it singed her hair. She could smell the burn. They weren’t going to make it.
Fyd! If only she hadn’t had that third glass of yrak.
Failure wasn’t an option.
And then they were sprawled on the gallery floor, lasers still flashing two stories down. Kass thrust her arm over Tal’s back as he started to spring up, ready to run some more. “Keep down!” she hissed. “Let them search. They’ll never guess where we’ve gone.”
In the light filtering onto the gallery from the well-lit room behind them, Kass watched as Tal came to terms with what had happened. Stomachs to the floor, noses nearly touching, they stared at each other. “You did this?” he whispered, incredulous. “You can move people?”
“If I could move a krall, twelve conference chairs, and the wing of a Tau-15, whatever made you think I couldn’t move people?”
“Just another perfectly ordinary Psyclid moment.”
Kass didn’t blame him for the sarcasm. She hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about her talents. “No,” she admitted, “it’s not ordinary. In fact, I was really surprised the day I looked down one of those long corridors in the Archives and contemplated the long, long walk to the book I wanted. And then, voilà, I was there, looking up at the spot on the fourth shelf that held the book.”
“Do you by any chance walk through walls?”
“Line of sight, Captain. As far as I know, none of us can dematerialize. That’s technology, I think, not a psychic gift. A technology as yet beyond anyone’s skill.”
Below them, the voices and footsteps of their two bewildered attackers had faded away, replaced by the sound of raucous voices singing, laughter, the tromp of many feet, some less than steady, as crews began to return to their ships after a night on station. Over it all, Kass heard voices calling, “Captain! Kiolani!” Help had arrived.
She scrambled to her feet, leaned over the balcony railing. “Up here! The captain needs help.”
“Mallick! You make me sound like I can’t walk,” Tal grumbled as he struggled to a sitting position.
“Look around, Captain. Your blood’s making a river all the way to the edge of the gallery, so cut the stoicism and play nice.”
His blue eyes cut through her stern glare. “Kiolani,” he said softly, “I believe this makes us even.”
Kass tugged up Tal’s shirt and, scrunching it into a ball, pressed it against the free-flowing wound in his left shoulder. “I still owe you,” she returned grimly as a groan escaped his gritted teeth. “But there’s nothing like getting shot at to clear away the fantasies.”
They barely had time to exchange a look of significant understanding when they were surrounded by a swarm of people from Astarte. Dorn Jorkan, Mical Turco, Anton Stagg, Joss Quint, more marines, an emergency med team, and . . . K’kadi? Kass scooted back to let the med techs work, her head swiveling toward her brother, who was obviously trying to communicate something urgent. Arms gesticulating wildly, he was jumping up and down, clearly totally frustrated by his inability to communicate.
“I’m sorry, dama,” Stagg said. “We would have had to restrain to keep him from coming with us. No one told him, he just knew.”
After a lingering look at Tal who, though pale, was now safely in good hands, Kass stood up and concentrated on her brother. K’kadi pointed down to the corridor below, where Tal had been shot, then back in the direction she and Tal had come from after exiting the lift. K’kadi’s fingers formed an arrow, pointing, pointing, pointing. His azure eyes pleaded.
“Lieutenant Stagg,” Kass said, “do you recall what happened earlier in K’kadi’s quarters?”
“I do.”
“I think he’s trying to tell us he can track the two men who did this. I have no idea how, but he seems to have scanned what was going on, and now he wants you to go with him.” Kass turned to her brother. “K’kadi, do I have that right?”
A vigorous nod. He reached for Stagg’s hand. Tugged.
“On it.” With a nod to Quint, the lieutenant turned and loped toward a whole squad of waiting, well-armed marines from Astarte. They followed K’kadi to the nearest lift.
Kass could only hope they made it to the docking bay level before station security showed up and endless explanations brought any hope of finding their attackers to an abrupt halt.
A flurry of movement as the med techs unfurled a skimmer pallet and gently hoisted Tal on board. They strapped him in, flat on his back. One of the techs pressed a button on a control module, and the pallet slowly rose to waist height. Reg waist height, Kass corrected. To her, the pallet was even with her shoulder. Tal’s eyes were closed. She couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or simply protecting his eyes from the bright lights as their entourage entered the interior of the station.
Kass took a position by Tal’s head and stayed there all the way back to Astarte’s medical bay. She waited and prayed to the goddess, while a
team of doctors worked on his wound. Knowing his injury wasn’t life-threatening didn’t seem to be much help. She’d lost Tal Rigel once. Fear of losing him again overwhelmed her common sense, blackening her horizons, snatching at her soul.
And then she was sitting by his bed, waiting . . . watching . . . thinking . . . wondering. Tal. Jagan. The rebellion. Destiny. Soulmates. Somehow the puzzle fit together, but from the stark reality of a med room at midnight on the rim of the galaxy, the only appropriate word seemed to be preposterous.
Chapter 19
“Report.” Tal lay back against the raised head of his med-bed and glared at Anton Stagg. The lieutenant did not look happy. “Consider Kiolani my alter ego,” Tal added, as the marine glanced in her direction. “Speak freely.”
Until the batani marine entered the room, Kass had been holding his hand, something Tal suspected she’d been doing all night, because she was still wearing the clingy dress that hugged every delicious curve. The one he’d vowed to strip off her before the evening was over. Fyd! The Fates had him on their hit list.
Maybe not. Tal’s lips curled in a secret smile. Looking back on the events of last night, it would appear his little Psyclid had become his personal hidden asset, as well as his secret weapon against the Empire. She’d earned her right to highest security clearance.
Lieutenant Stagg, contrary to his customary military-efficient attitude, appeared to be having difficulty putting his thoughts together. He shifted his stance to parade rest, glanced at a spot above Tal’s head before addressing him face to face in proper military mode. “I don’t know if Dama Kiolani told you, Captain,” he said, “but the Psyclid kid seems to have a built-in scanner in his head—he can locate people he knows, sense the presence of people he doesn’t know.”
Tal nodded. “Kass told me, but it’s not easy to accept.”
Lieutenant Stagg cleared his throat. “Well, evidently, K’kadi is also enough of an empath to sense emotions, particularly violent ones. He led us in an unerring line down the corridor until we reached a Taurian merchant ship. Big, well-armed, and roughed-up, like it had survived more than its share of hostiles. A smuggler, if I’ve ever seen one. The trail stopped there. K’kadi kept pointing at the ship, but when I asked him if he could identify the men by sight, the kid looked like he was going to cry. So no point summoning station security. That was it.
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