The Dead Priest

by K A Bledsoe

  “Where were you born?” asked Allison.

  “I don’t know. I never found out.” She ignored Quinn’s odd look, was it of sadness? Pity? “But if he comes here, I will act as if this is it and, well, you’ll see.” Lenore took another breath and she felt the energy meds kicking in fully. “I transferred the pilot controls to your board, Diarmin. We will need you flying the ship, but I need to be in the command chair for this.”

  “Sixty seconds,” said Quinn.

  “Alli, raise shields as soon as possible after we come out of transwarp. I don’t think the ship will be there yet, but I want to be prepared.”

  Allison nodded and turned to her board.

  As the seconds ticked down, Lenore reached into her shipsuit pocket and pulled out the two tiny implants that she had carried in her body for more than two-thirds of her life. Closing her fist over them, she shoved them back into her pocket and focused on the mission.

  “Coming out of transspace in five... four... three... two... and...”

  Stars appeared on the screen, one significantly brighter than any others, the sun of this system. Diarmin rotated the ship to see the nearest planet.

  “Confirming location,” said Quinn. “Kitrun system. We are looking at the fifth planet.”

  “Diarmin, move us behind its primary moon,” said Lenore. She toggled the communication switch. “This is Lenore Kelton requesting an open channel to the Xa’ti’al ship in this system.” She punched in the broadcast code, using the Xa’s special encryption so others on the planet couldn’t read the signal.

  They waited for an answer. Nothing.

  “Shields are up,” said Allison.

  “Scans reveal ships around the fourth planet, the usual amount for a settled world,” added Quinn.

  “Weapons ready,” said Diarmin. Lenore realized that was the first time he had spoken since he knew what she was up to. She looked at him to see if he disapproved but his face was blank.

  Lenore put the hail on auto replay.

  Silence descended on the bridge, broken only by Allison’s tapping fingers.

  “How long do we wait?” Quinn asked.

  “It’s only been three minutes. I will give it up to thirty, but I don’t think we will need more than ten.”

  “A ship is dropping out of transwarp somewhere on the other side of that moon,” said Quinn, anxiety making his voice louder than necessary.

  “Will we have line of sight?” asked Lenore.

  “Negative. Looks like it is putting the moon between our ships.”

  Lenore smiled. It was Daviss. She sent the message one more time, adding a request for visual. It was received instantly.

  “Follow my lead everyone. Opening a channel.” She tapped the appropriate keys and Daviss’s face appeared on the viewscreen. The background was indistinct, and she knew that Daviss had a similar view of only her face.

  “Hello, Daviss. I knew you would understand my message, just like I knew you would already have knowledge of my true birth planet.”

  Daviss’s signature smile was firmly in place. “You know we have our ways to get information.” He tilted his head. “Does this mean you are coming home?”

  “Of course not.” Lenore leaned forward. “Kurla told me of her mission. How you were testing me and my family.”

  Daviss grimaced. Again, the emotion was perfect. Lenore had no way to tell if he was truly annoyed or acting. But she would get it out of him. Today.

  “That may be, but it was still no reason to kill her and the others,” he replied.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Quinn jerk in his chair, but he managed to keep quiet.

  “Stop trying to rattle me, Daviss,” she said. “You know that’s not how I do things. She was perfectly fine last time I saw her.”

  Daviss’s eyes widened an infinitesimal amount, but Lenore caught it. Damn, he is good. She almost believed he was surprised.

  “Well,” said Daviss. “That will take some looking into.” His right shoulder moved, indicating a gesture that was out of her line of sight.

  He let me see that. He really wants me to think Kurla is dead.

  A buzz by her left hand caused Lenore to glance down at her personal pad. Quinn had sent her a private message. There was another ship separating from the first.

  “This is your last chance, Lenore. Rejoin the Xa’ti’al.”

  “Why would I come back after all you have done to me? Before and after? Rejoin a group that sterilizes their agents and experiments on families?”

  “The Xa’ti’al wanted to kill you. The test was the only way I could convince them to keep you and your family alive.” Now his face showed earnestness.

  Lenore laughed. “There is no way you will convince me that you give a damn about whether I live or die, Daviss.”

  “You are more important than you realize.” Daviss leaned forward as if in mimicry to Lenore’s pose. “They are done with you now, though. The order has come down to kill you. Please, this is your last chance.”

  Lenore leaned back, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Quinn was making a small circular motion with his finger. That ship was circling to move behind them. They were running out of time.

  Without taking her eyes from Daviss, she typed a note to Diarmin on her pad. “Then pass along this offer to whoever is making these ridiculous decisions. I will stand down with my investigations of the Xa’ti’al’s illegal activities, such as the Beryshie Corporation, and you will leave us in peace. We will disappear and have nothing to do with each other from this day forward.”

  “They will never bargain, you know that,” said Daviss. Lenore noticed his eyes flick to the side as if reading a message on his own board. “And they will never stop hunting for you. You can’t hide from us forever. There are many of us and only one of you, Lenore.”

  “Wrong, Daviss. There are four of us. We are better together than any hundred of the Xa. And you just made a terrible mistake by threatening this family.”

  Lenore closed the communication and signaled to Diarmin to finish the command she had typed to him.

  “Get us out of here. I’ve learned all I need to.”

  Epilogue

  “Is the drone ready?” Lenore asked her husband. They had made two preprogrammed jumps in the past thirty minutes and were preparing to exit transspace and do their third and most important one.

  “Yes. Course programmed in.” He held out the pod and Lenore fished in her pocket once more. As she pulled out her former implants, she looked at her family’s concerned faces.

  “Are you sure this will work, Mom?” asked Allison.

  “We know he was tracking me. The easiest assumption is by these things. And those.” Lenore held out her hand for the bag that Quinn was holding. It contained every item she had ever been given by the Xa’ti’al, all the secret devices and tools that made her an agent.

  She tossed them into the pod, one by one. The grapple, the tiny EMP device, the holdout blaster. The specialized gloves were the last item she pulled from the bag. Lenore handed the bag to Quinn and turned the gloves over and over in her hands. They, along with all the rest, had been a part of her for so long that she felt a little hollower, almost incomplete, without them. But as she put the gloves into the drone, she realized that hollower also meant lighter.

  “I know I need to get rid of all this, but I will admit, I will miss some of the more useful stuff,” she said as she closed the pod on the final remnants of the Xa’ti’al. The physical remnants.

  “Not as much as I will,” said Diarmin. “I’m the one who has to make the replacements.”

  Everyone chuckled but sobered as Diarmin placed the drone into a launch tube.

  “So,” said Quinn. “The idea is that they will track this drone instead of us, and we will finally be able to drop out of sight.”

  “That’s right. Alli’s found the perfect job while the ship is undergoing upgrades,” said Lenore.

  “And we won’t have to worry about
the Xa trying to kill us,” said Allison.

  Lenore glanced at Diarmin and saw him glancing back at her.

  “What?” asked Quinn. He sighed loudly. “I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. You know we notice it every time you guys give each other significant looks like that.”

  Allison nodded vigorously in agreement.

  “I didn’t explain everything to you. That last conversation with Daviss told me that they are not done with testing. Now they want to pursue us even harder and farther.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Allison, but Lenore could see Quinn was trying to figure it out on his own.

  “They showed up at that planet which is surefire proof that they are tracking me.” Both looked impatient at her summary, but she ignored it. “But if they could track me all along, they would have known that we were not really in that room for the awards ceremony. They staged that attack as much as we staged the deception. I do know that Daviss will no longer ask me to return. As soon as they catch up with the drone, they will know that I am on to them and their games. But for now, we have a respite.”

  “And the downtime will give us time to tell you guys everything about your mother and me,” said Diarmin.

  And also, thought Lenore, time to plan how to get rid of the Xa’ti’al threat permanently.

  Acknowledgments

  As with any book, there are so many people to thank; friends and family who have supported me from day one, those that enthusiastically congratulated me on the first book even if they hadn’t known me all that long, and yet others who may not read much but believed in me enough to encourage me when I falter.

  But most of all I would like to thank my beta readers and editors. Shonna Slayton, who is the strictest editor, will tell me things I may not want to hear but are sorely needed for improvement. She has also given me plenty of publishing advice, even when I have emailed her three times in one day. My mother and Sandra and my newest betareader/editor Jennifer all caught typos and general wording mistakes that a writer tends to overlook on their tenth time through.

  'Thanks' also go to Christian who designed the gorgeous cover. You can find his work at coversbychristian dot com.

  And a final ‘thank you’ for those who told me you liked book one of the Kelton series, giving me the ego boost needed to write another one.

  About the Author

  K. A. Bledsoe’s writing journey began at the age of six with a story about kids growing up on a space station. Even through other jobs like scooping ice cream, shoe salesman, pharmacy tech, band director and parenting, writing has been a constant.

  The author currently resides in Arizona and continues to pen stories in all genres despite the distraction of two cats underfoot and the occasional bobcat or roadrunner strolling through the back yard.

  Here is a sneak peek at the first chapter of K. A. Bledsoe’s new novella, a companion tale to “The Lost Princess” the first in The Kelton Cases series.

  Here is a sneak peak of the first chapter of K.A. Bledsoe's new novella...

  THE PRINCESS’S COMPANION

  The Princess’s Companion

  The two girls giggled as they turned the corner, hand in hand.

  “Look! There goes another.” The one in the lead pointed at the ship rising in the distance. The drive kicked in and it shot into the sky and out of sight in moments.

  “We’re almost there,” said the other. Her brown eyes, straight long black hair and aquiline nose resembled the other closely enough to be a sister. “Another couple of blocks and we’ll finally see the spaceport!”

  “A true adventure!” They locked eyes and giggled again as they continued down the street, unaware that another pair of eyes was watching them.

  The next street over was not as welcoming. The girl in the lead was oblivious to the hostile stares but her companion took notice of the poorer surroundings. She let herself be led, but her eyes roved everywhere. Her other hand had slipped beneath her coat to reassure herself that the knife was still easily accessible.

  “Damn.” The two girls pulled up sharply at the blocked street. “How do we get through?”

  “I thought you had this all planned out, Maya.”

  “I did, Lara, but I can’t remember everything. Gimme the map.” They sat on the edge of the street while Lara removed her backpack and dug inside.

  “Here.” She said and handed a roll of paper to Maya. “I’m hungry. What do we have to eat?” She reached for Maya’s backpack.

  Maya snatched at the map and slapped Lara’s hand away. “Silly. Don’t you know anything? That food has to last a long time. What good is running away if you eat all your food in one day?”

  “Of course, I forgot.” Lara smiled while Maya studied the map. Every year right before her birthday, Maya “ran away”, determined to have an adventure. Every year Lara went with her, a faithful companion since birth. On their first “runaway” at five years old, they spent the day in the fruit orchards, stuffing themselves. They were found three hours later sick with stomach cramps. When they were nine, they made it into town before they were discovered. At ten, they travelled in the opposite direction into the forest lands but were driven home by a fierce storm. Every year an adventure, it became tradition. This year, three days before her thirteenth birthday, they might finally get to see the spaceport before her parents found them. It was their best escape yet.

  “Ah, I see.” Maya thrust her finger at the map. “This road was supposed to be open but according to my data,” she stood up and fiddled with her wristcomp. “It is now closed for some repairs to the sewers. Ew.”

  Lara packed away the map and stood beside her friend. “We could always take a cab.” She hid her smile at the predictable outburst.

  “Never! You know the rules! A real adventure means no cheating. Hey…” Maya frowned at her friend mouthing the mantra along with her. “Hmph. If you knew, why did you ask?”

  Lara grinned. “Is there another route to the spaceport?”

  “I can get you there.”

  Both girls gasped and whipped around to see a strange boy standing with his hands in his pockets. Lara’s hand grasped the hilt of the hidden knife, but she refrained from pulling it. He looked to be about their age with the same dark coloration and features of a native of this planet. So far, he was making no hostile moves. She could tell Maya was instantly interested.

  “You can? How?”

  “My father is a baggage handler. He runs the computers that route all the stuff people carry onto the ships.” He shrugged. “I can actually get you in the back, close to the touchdown fields, not through the front like a tourist.”

  “Why would you do that?” asked Lara, ignoring the dig in the ribs by her friend.

  “I didn’t say I would do it for free.” His chin pointed to the backpacks. “Got anything interesting in there?” The girls clutched the bags a bit tighter and looked at each other.

  “I’ll give you ten credits,” said Maya and Lara stifled a groan. The boy’s eyebrows twitched slightly but he maintained a serious face. Lara looked closer at the boy’s threadbare clothing and worn shoes. She could tell he didn’t expect such a high offer, but he went with it. “Make it twenty.”

  Maya’s chin went up and the spark behind her eyes became defiant at his counter. Lara pinched her, trying not to show this boy that Maya was unused to demands from others.

  She whispered. “C’mon, Maya. Part of the adventure is the bargaining.”

  Maya gave her a grin and relaxed. “Twelve credits,” she said to the boy.

  “Eighteen.”

  “Fifteen. That’s all I can afford.”

  “Done then.” The boy held out his hand to shake. Maya took it while Lara’s tightened on the hilt, but nothing happened.

  “This way.” The boy motioned and they headed down a small side street.

  “What’s your name?” asked Maya.

  The boy looked at her as if surprised at the question. “Dhan.”

 
; “Hello Dhan, I’m-” Maya began but Lara tripped and bumped into her.

  “Oh, sorry, Mitali.” Maya’s eyes widened at her comment, but Lara narrowed hers to remind her of their situation. Maya acknowledged the reminder with a rueful grin.

  “That’s okay, Lisha.” She turned to Dhan. “We are Mitali and Lisha. It’s nice meeting you.”

  The boy smiled. “If we hurry, we can make it before the next transport.”

  Dhan led them on a twisty route that crossed many streets, a few alleyways and even through a couple of buildings. Lara tried to keep track of their route but doubted she could retrace their steps when this was all over.

  All over. Even though Maya might think this was truly running away to find an adventure, Lara knew it would end with a return home, back to their regular life. They were always found and sometimes Lara suspected that Maya’s parents knew all about it and indulged their spirited daughter. But even Lara was excited that they had gotten so far and now they were going to see the spaceport from the inside. Worth all the planning and watching Maya more than usual.

  But that was her duty, had been since being bonded when they were both two years old. Lara was extensively trained to safeguard Maya but along with that responsibility came privilege and education, not something she would have had in her regular life before she was chosen. But Maya was a joy to be with, making Lara’s job as companion and bodyguard one she never regretted. They were sisters of the soul, closer than most blood siblings.

  Maya stumbled and Lara caught her just before she hit the pavement.

  “Careful, Mitali. Don’t want to get any injuries.” Lara leaned in to whisper. “Especially not when you are supposed to meet your future husband in three days.”

  Maya groaned and she let Dhan get a little further ahead. “Why do you think I am so anxious to run away? I don’t want to be bonded to a strange old man.”