Eomix Galaxy Books: Identity (Book 2 of 2)

by Yelich-Koth,Christa

  Torrak’s grin faltered for a split second, but long enough for Trey to know he’d won.

  “Yes, I know about Faan,” Trey said, picking at his immaculate nails. “The ship’s heat sensors were activated the moment you came aboard. I know she left right now when the guards did. I’ve alerted my crew to track her heat signature and bring her back here.”

  “If you touch her, you’re dead,” Torrak hissed.

  Trey laughed. “Not as tough when it’s a pretty woman whose body is going to be broken. I’ll be back soon.”

  Torrak’s knees bowed and he fell to the cold floor.

  He knows. How could he know about Faan? Despair washed over him. Their escape plan would never work. Xiven had probably already captured Nuis and Preeaht on the planet. He knew the plan had been a long shot, but he really believed he would be able to save Daith.

  Torrak slumped against the cell wall, exhausted and beaten. Then he heard Kalil moan.

  “Oh, no. Kalil, are you all right?”

  “It had to be the same knee, didn’t it? The one I injured when Opute knocked me down the stairs.” Kalil cursed repeatedly. “I knew they might hurt us, but why couldn’t it have been you?”

  “It was a test. If Xiven saw weakness when you got hurt, he would have kept hurting you until I told him everything he wanted to know. It’s an effective way to get information.”

  A female voice filled the room. “Then I guess I’m going to be in serious trouble.” Faan materialized before them.

  “You’re still here?” Torrak asked. “I thought you were going to check out the ship.”

  “Change of plan. After I saw what had happened to Kalil, I knew I had to get him out of here. Besides, I wasn’t unconscious when we came on board, remember? I can lead us to the shuttles.”

  Torrak shook his head. “They know you’re here. They’re going to find your heat signature and track you down.”

  A mischievous grin spread across Faan’s face. “Didn’t I mention I can control my body temperature?”

  Torrak moved his face as close to the cell’s shielding as he could. “Have I told you yet how amazing you are?”

  Faan smiled wider and began to remove the cell’s shields.

  “Wait,” Torrak said. “Leave me in here, but take Kalil and continue with the plan. I still have to try to see Daith.”

  “What makes you think they’ll bring her here?”

  Torrak could feel her presence. She called out to him from somewhere in the ship. Not with words, but a pull, like a thin wire tugging at him. “She’ll come. I’m sure of it.”

  He could see Faan swallow her protest as she released Kalil from his cell. The shield in front of him shimmered away.

  “No, Faan, I’m not coming with you.”

  “I know.” Faan moved in and kissed him softly on the lips. “Stay alive.” She melted into invisibility, reestablished the shield, and the door opened.

  Kalil nervously exited, stealing a look back at Torrak. “Good luck.”

  “You, too.”

  *

  Daith’s door slid open. She caught Cenjo about to ring the chimes.

  “Cenjo! It’s good to see you. I was heading toward Trey’s office.” Daith’s face fell when she saw Cenjo’s stoic expression. “What’s wrong?”

  Cenjo stepped inside, his hands laced tightly together. “I don’t know if I should tell you. It may not even be true. I mean, I only heard it in passing....”

  “What? What is it?”

  “They’ve caught the man who killed Dru. And apparently his accomplice.”

  Daith’s chest tightened. “They’re here? On the ship?” Fury blossomed inside her. Daith felt warmth swell in her gut like sharp bursts of flame, instead of the slow smoldering warmth she normally felt.

  “Yes. They were caught on Sintaur.”

  “I thought the authorities already apprehended them?”

  “Apparently they were mistaken.”

  Daith shook with anger. “That makes sense. I dreamt about him last night. Still alive and at large this whole time. Still trying to use me. Trying to make me feel guilty I killed Dru. But he killed him.” Daith’s gaze fell across the datapads on her floor, the words on them written by Dru. Her heart pounded. Buzzing filled her ears. The words mocked her. The universe mocked her.

  Daith strode over to the communications console. “Where is Commander Xiven?” she asked the ship.

  “Commander Xiven is in his office,” it responded.

  Daith walked toward the door, but Cenjo didn’t move. “Get out of my way. I need to see Trey.”

  “Daith, you’re not thinking straight. Take a minute and...” Cenjo’s words died on his lips. His eyes bulged and he grasped for his throat.

  “Get out of my way,” she repeated.

  He stumbled backward and she pushed past him. She could hear him gulping for air as she unrestricted his windpipe.

  Daith stopped outside Trey’s office and exhaled loudly. She wanted to rush inside and demand to see these murderers. She wanted to scream at Trey for allowing Dru to have met with them in the first place. She wanted to blast the door apart with her mind.

  But instead, she rang the chimes.

  *

  “Daith, you look well-rested. How are you feeling?”

  “I heard you have the man who killed Dru on board.”

  Trey swallowed hard. He hoped to have interrogated and disposed of Torrak before Daith awoke—fed her some story about how he’d still been alive and trying to rally citizens on Sintaur. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Yes. We picked him up a short while ago off the planet. He and his collaborator.”

  “I want to see them.” Daith’s green-eyed stare bore into his.

  “I’m not sure that’s wise,” Trey said, cautiously, securing his mind-block. He couldn’t risk Daith having a face-to-face with Torrak. He would tell her the truth about everything. Unless….

  “Don’t you understand why they chose him, Daith? He’s the only one who could get to you because you knew him. He will try to trick you, using this previous relationship of yours to turn you over to his side. He’ll tell you they didn’t mean to kill your family or even that your family is still alive. That he never met Dru or that Dru tried to kill him first. Who knows what else? I’m worried with the state of anger you’re in, you won’t be able to tell the truth from his concocted stories.”

  Trey’s desk trembled. Anger poured off Daith in waves. Even without any special abilities, Trey could feel the energy in the room.

  “Torrak has deceived me for the last time,” Daith said, her voice full of venom. “Even last night, in my dream. He tried to make me think I’d been responsible for Dru’s death.

  “I need to see him,” she continued. “I know how to close off my mind. I won’t hear anything he tells me. I need to see the man who…” Daith choked on the words. Her hands, resting on the desk, melted the material and sunk into it.

  Trey finally understood Daith’s true intentions. She didn’t care about the truth. She didn’t want justice.

  She wanted to kill Torrak.

  Trey could think of nothing better than if Daith destroyed her only link to the truth. “You can see him, but only if Lieutenant Commander Cenjo and I are present.”

  “That’s fine.”

  The two of them left Trey’s office after Trey ordered Cenjo to meet them outside the prisoner’s holding cell. Trey held tight control over his mind barrier and facial expression, even though his insides twitched with glee.

  About a standard half hour after Kalil and Faan left to see if they could sabotage the communications and sensors, Torrak saw the door to the holding area open and close on its own. A few moments later, Faan materialized.

  Adrenaline drained from his body, relieved to see her okay. “Back already?”

  “We have to move quickly,” Faan said, racing to the cell shield controls. “Kalil and I made it to the shuttle bay on the fir
st floor. He changed the security system and he’s working on the shuttle right now. They still think they are scanning for me throughout the ship. They won’t know I’m in here with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kalil fed the ship’s main computer a false loop so the ship still thinks it’s looking for me, but it’s actually receiving old data, which shows I’m not on the ship. He also rigged it so the sensors think he is still in his cell.”

  “That kid is a genius.”

  “No argument here,” Faan said. She reached for the controls to release Torrak.

  “I can’t leave yet. Not without Daith.”

  Faan clenched her fists. “We have to leave, now. If Sintaur fights back, Xiven will see his plan is going to fail. He’ll pull back. We can try again for Daith another time. Kalil may be a genius, but the search teams might find him and he doesn’t know how long his computer loop will hold. Plus he can’t make himself invisible, remember? We have to leave, now.”

  “Short on time or not, we won’t get another chance,” Torrak said. “I don’t think Xiven is going to keep Daith around after he’s done using her. And if I can convince her to stop, we may save thousands of lives in the process.”

  Faan stared into Torrak’s eyes, the ice blue color of her irises narrowing as her pupils dilated. “Fine,” she agreed, her voice edged with resistance. “We’ll do this your way. I trust you.” Faan cleared her throat. “But if I feel like anything is going wrong,” she continued, “I’m going to—”

  Faan stopped, shushed him, and disappeared. Less than a moment later, the door to the holding room slid open. A man Torrak didn’t recognize, with slicked-back black hair and olive-toned skin entered first, followed closely by Xiven.

  Daith walked in behind them.

  Torrak heard the sharp hiss of his inhale. He’d actually found her.

  As she approached his cell, Torrak assessed her. His stomach turned with fear. She looked thinner and paler than he remembered. Her eyes, still emerald green, stared at him, bland and almost void of life.

  Torrak stood there. He didn’t know what to say. All this time, trying to find her, and he had no idea how to convince her of the truth. His mind blanked. He just stood there, staring.

  She spoke.

  “Hello, Torrak.” Simple words, but Torrak felt the electricity in them.

  His mouth completely dry, Torrak rasped a hello.

  Daith continued, her eyes still blank. “I don’t know what you thought you would accomplish with the things you did, but I’m here to tell you, you failed. In a few standard hours, all the strategic areas on this planet will be demolished, all your military bases destroyed, and the seeds of evil planted in those governments will be gone. You will no longer be able to hurt innocent lives.”

  Daith leaned forward so only Torrak could hear her. Her eyes flashed with light, fast and sharp like lightning.

  “You are going to die for what you did to Dru.”

  Daith straightened and closed her eyes.

  Torrak finally found his voice. “Daith, I—”

  “Someone else is in the room,” she interrupted.

  “Yes. Torrak’s accomplice, Kalil, is in the next cell,” Xiven said.

  “No, that cell is empty. His friend is gone.”

  Xiven’s face flushed with embarrassment at not having looked.

  “Cenjo, go find him. Now!”

  Cenjo hesitated, staring at Daith, his lips pursed. Then he turned on his heel and strode from the room.

  Daith cocked her head, like a flying birna. Her left arm rose slowly, her finger pointed to the corner of the room. “It’s coming from over there.”

  Xiven spoke. “Computer, how many bodies are there in this room?”

  “There are four bodies located inside Holding Block A,” the computer answered, coolly. “Correction, there are five bodies inside Holding Block—correction, there are three bodies inside—correction….”

  “Useless piece of junk,” Xiven muttered.

  Daith turned her head to the celling where the computer’s voice issued. “Clever,” she said. “They put the computer on a time loop.”

  Torrak stared at Daith in disbelief. How could she know that?

  Xiven spoke toward the corner. “Faan, you might as well show yourself. I know it’s you.”

  Nothing happened for a moment and then Faan shimmered into view.

  Daith returned her gaze to Torrak. “Do you want to know what she thinks about you?”

  “W-what?” Torrak stammered.

  “This woman. She thinks someday she might grow to love you. She thinks maybe she could be happy. Did you know that?”

  Torrak stood there, his heart pounding inside his chest out of fear and excitement His glance flickered between the two women. “I don’t—I didn’t know, I guess….”

  Daith’s lips stretched into a hideous grin, pulled back over her teeth. “You feel the same. It pours out of you like a waterfall. You could be truly happy with her, couldn’t you? The possibility. The potential. What could be. What might be.”

  Daith closed her eyes. A snap rang through the air. Faan fell to the floor, her neck bent at an unnatural angle. Platinum hair fanned out around her head like an askew halo.

  “NO!” Torrak cried out. Without thinking, he ran toward her, but the shield held its place and Torrak bounced back to the floor by a jolt of electricity.

  “Isn’t it amazing how much it hurts when you see someone you care about die? Someone you trusted? Depended on?”

  Torrak forced his shaking body to stand. He held Daith’s gaze as he spoke. “I don’t know what they told you, but you know they’ve lied to you. All this? It’s just an illusion. The truth is in your mind. You only have to look.” Torrak resisted the urge to look at Faan’s face. He could see her from the corner of his eye—her mouth hung open wide, the perfect picture of a silent scream.

  Daith’s jaw twitched at his words.

  “Daith?” Xiven said cautiously, moving toward her.

  Daith’s eyes blanked again. She looked at Faan’s body. “You were innocent, like Dru. It’s never fair to those who are innocent, is it?” Daith turned back toward Torrak. “Now you know how it feels to see love die. Now you know what you did to me. I hope you suffer as I have suffered.”

  Torrak’s eyes burned with tears. Daith’s body blurred as she turned from him and left the room, followed by Xiven.

  “I’m going to die in a utility closet,” Kalil muttered.

  Three standard hours had passed since Faan had left him to retrieve Torrak. They should have been back by now. Kalil knew the computer’s sensors couldn’t find him, but he already had one close call. He’d been inside the shuttlecraft, after he disabled its alarm system he worked on overriding its lockout protocols, when he heard voices inside the shuttle bay. Three security personnel walked through the room, checking empty containers, and looking into the other shuttles.

  Kalil ducked, panicked. He reestablished the alarm system on the shuttlecraft right before he heard one of them approach. The officer called out to confirm the alarm was still intact. He walked away without looking inside.

  Kalil waited, trembling for several standard minutes after he heard the shuttle bay door close before he peeked through one of the viewports. Once he confirmed they’d gone, Kalil finished his preparations and left the shuttle, resetting the alarm once again. The question became where to wait until Faan and Torrak returned.

  So now he lay on the floor of a utility closet, where he had a view of the room through the tiny crack beneath the door, wedged behind some spare shuttle parts. It may have been a dumb place to hide, but there wasn’t anywhere else in the room he could go, and if he left, it would only take one crewmember to see him and realize his civilian clothes, busted leg, and grimy appearance didn’t belong.

  Where were they? Had something happened? At this point, Kalil didn’t know if he could leave even if they did arrive soon. One of his legs felt numb and completely asleep
, the other on fire and swollen at the knee, and his bladder screamed at him for relief. If someone caught him he’d either fall from pain and numbness or urinate on anyone who grabbed him. Kalil laughed nervously at this thought and then sobered up when he heard someone enter the room.

  “I’ll check in here,” the voice said. “You check the other rooms.”

  Kalil peeked through the crack and saw a tall man with black hair and olive skin looking around. He’d been in the prison cell room. Kalil silently hoped that for some reason this man wouldn’t check in the utility closet when he heard the strangest thing.

  The man called out for him. By name.

  “Kalil? Are you in here? I have to talk to you.”

  Kalil held his breath, wondering what sort of trap this was, but then his leg twitched and banged into one of the spare parts.

  The man’s head swung toward the utility closet.

  Another soldier stuck his head into the room. “Anything in here, Lieutenant Commander?”

  The Lieutenant Commander narrowed his eyes at the closet. “No,” he told the other soldier. “Nothing. But I’m going to check the shuttles anyway. Apparently the assassin’s accomplice is very good with machines. I suggest you do the same to the other shuttle bay.”

  The soldier confirmed the order and left.

  The Lieutenant Commander made his way over to the utility closet and opened the door. “We have to go, now.”

  Kalil swallowed the lump in his throat. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Cenjo. I know you’re trying to stop Commander Xiven. I’m here to help. But we need to leave.”

  Kalil, seeing no other choice, began to crawl out. His progress stopped short as pain bolted through his injured leg. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out.

  “What’s wrong?” Cenjo asked.

  “Already forgotten that one of your crewmates busted my kneecap?” Kalil said through clenched teeth. “And my other leg is asleep.”