by S. L. Viehl
the trainees over discovering what the Tåna was really all about. Everyone had set aside their political
differences for the moment, in favor of a little much-deserved revenge.
The rest of the welcoming committee slipped into third level, and took their positions.
“If all those who trained before us are simply slaves, then we may be the very first blade dancers to go
freely from the place,” Ren said to me. “What will happen when that becomes known?”
“Let’s get free first; then we’ll worry about finding jobs and dealing with the media.” I shifted and pulled
down my headgear as the first wave of League troops poured in from the corridor. Instantly all the lights
went out. “Here they come.” I said into my transmitter, “First team, let them get past your lines before you
converge.”
The strategy I’d given Kol was known as the back blitz in shockball, and just like on the field, it worked
with devastating effectiveness. As the League troops moved in and struggled to get their bearings, two
clusters of dancers struck from each side, coming up behind the troops to attack as fast as possible, then
retreat in the opposite direction.
After the first team leader gave me the green, I called for the next. “Second team, back blitz now.”
As the line of soldiers turned to the rear, two more blitz teams attacked from the front, while the first
team moved in a second time from each flank.
The second team leader breathlessly transmitted that many of the League troops had now broken free of
the sandwich by running through their line.
“Third team,” I said. “Up and at ‘em.”
The fleeing soldiers were caught by the third wave, who had been lying in wait, flat on the floor in front of
them. That line split in half and engulfed the soldiers, attacking for a second time from both sides. Pulse
rifles fired frantically, lighting up the darkness with their exploding rounds.
“Birdie,” I said. “A little help with the noise, please.”
Galena and the other avatars began dropping down from the dome roof and snatching weapons, which
they carried to the fourth and final team, assembled around the walls of the dome.
“Kol.” I took a deep breath. “They’re all yours.”
As the League soldiers tried to find their way back to the level entrance, the ring of blade dancers began
to move in, driving them toward an ever-decreasing center area, where the true hand-to-hand fighting
took place.
I repeated the plays as more soldiers entered the dome a second time, then dispersed the teams to
augment the center field. The battle drew out for what seemed to be forever to me, especially when a
group of the soldiers stumbled into our barricade and I sent Danea and Renor to drive them back toward
the center.
“They have left you all alone, have they?” My blades were plucked out of my hands by big furry paws.
“Don’t look so surprised, Jory.” Thgill lifted me into his strong arms, and gave me his wolf’s grin. “I said
we’d run into each other again someday.”
I got one solid punch to his jaw before he pinned my arm down. “You’re not tinkering on me again, you
Judas.”
“Uel wants you back on your feet.” He carried me away from the barricade and kept close to the walls,
heading for the entrance to the trainee corridor. “I’m just the means.”
“You pretended to be my friend so you could fuck with my leg.” I spit in his face, to distract him. “I’ll kill
you before I let you touch me again.”
“Hate me all you want. Your owner pays me to repair you, not romance you.” Thgill lifted a hand to wipe
his face, then jerked as I fired the pulse pistol Kol had given me into his chest. We went down on the
floor. As I rolled away from him, I saw a neat, three-inch hole in his back. He choked out blood with a
laugh. “Perhaps I should have romanced you.” His puppy-dog eyes closed, and he went still.
Wanting more firepower, I groped for a nearby pulse rifle, still in the hands of a fallen soldier. Something
tore it and the pistol from my hands and sent them skidding away; then alloy grapplers yanked me from
the floor. “You can’t kill me, Sajora, unless you have something that penetrates seven inches of plasteel
cranium.”
Funny that Bek knew he’d come back for me. “Why aren’t you hiding down in the dungeon, Blade
Master? We’ve got this under control.”
He lifted me up. “Don’t struggle; I’ll sedate you if I must.” His accumulators glowed red in the dark as he
looked down at Thgill, then me. “A pity you had to kill the major. He was most convenient to have on the
payroll.”
“Yeah, I’m all broken up about it.”
“I can see you are.” He stepped over Thgill’s body as he studied my face. “It still astonishes me. I never
thought you would look so much like your mother.”
“How would you know what she looked like?” But as soon as the words left my lips, I knew the answer.
“Because I am Samuel Kieran. Your father, Sajora.”
Pulse fire shot past us from all directions, but he didn’t run. We could have been taking a leisurely stroll
through the park.
I tried to wriggle my good leg out of his grip, then felt the nozzle of a syrinpress against my throat and
went still. “Whatever it is you want from me, you won’t get it.”
“You’ve already given it to me. Apart from your misguided penchant for honor and justice, you are
everything a man could ask for in a daughter.” His grapplers tightened. “Now we will leave this place, and
you and I will continue as we were meant to be. Together.”
“Do you have some poison for my implant?” I asked. “Because that’s the only way you’ll keep me with
you.”
“My daughter is not a slave. We will move my operation to another, safer location, and resume training.
When your leg heals, I intend to place you in charge of all bladework.” He dodged a soldier. “I suppose I
should tell Bek he’s being replaced.”
I struggled against his inhuman grip. “Why haven’t you killed him? And why did you save Kol from
Fayne?”
“I thought keeping the Chakaran and the Jorenian alive—and under my control—will insure your
obedience.” He tightened his grapplers. “To keep them alive, you’ll do exactly what I want.”
“And what’s that?”
“I made sure of that when I tested you on the Chraeser. You are a natural dancer, just as I was.” He
said that as if it were something to be proud of, like being gifted in music. “All you have to do is accept
that you are your father’s daughter.”
I took a deep breath and shouted for Kol and help, before one of the grapplers clamped over my mouth.
“Shut up,” my father said. “You don’t belong with them. You’re my child; you’ve always been mine. If
your mother hadn’t run from me, we would have never been apart.”
A League soldier came up, pointing a weapon at me. One of Kieran’s grapplers shot out and seized him
by the throat. The soldier screamed, then pitched over as my father tore his head off.
I wrenched myself out of his other arm and fell, landing facedown on top of the decapitated man’s body.
Warm blood still spurted from his neck and sprayed in my face.
“Come along now, daughter.” Kieran yanked me to my feet.
Two more soldiers came at him from either side, shoving us apart, and we both we
nt down. One gurgled
and staggered away, but the other leveled a pulse rifle at my head.
“No.” Kieran rolled over on top of me, straddling me under his heavy chassis. For a split second, the light
from his red eyes burned into mine. “You’re mine. My daughter. Just like me.”
The pulse rifle fired.
Then his plastic face began to melt, and the alloy under it glowed bright orange. He shoved me across the
floor and rolled away, taking the soldier with the rifle down with him.
I covered my head with my arms, and turned away, which is why I didn’t see Kieran’s head explode. A
shower of hot shrapnel pelted my back and neck, then a huge weight slammed into me, and I fell
gratefully into the darkness.
We prevailed over the League strike force, but the battle cost us. When the last soldier fell, more than a
hundred dancers littered the floor of the arena.
Kol’s was the first face I saw when I regained consciousness, and I allowed myself to be a silly,
emotional female and cried all over him. In between my sobs, he assured me that our clan had come
through the battle unharmed, and were scattered around the Tåna, recovering the injured and helping to
move the bodies of the dead.
“Sajora, there is something I must tell you now.” He pressed my hand between his. “If there had been any
other way, I would have seen to it.”
He didn’t have to say it. I’d known from the moment I’d opened my eyes. A funny rush filled my ears,
and I heard myself ask, “How much is left?”
Kol helped me sit up, and drew back the linens. I took a deep breath, and then I looked.
My right leg was gone from the top of my knee down.
I’d always dreaded this moment, feared it more than anything. I’d resisted it with everything I had. Yet as
I looked at the rounded, bandaged stump, I felt a sense of peace settle over me. I’d given it a good fight,
all I had, and for once in my life I was going to be a good loser.
“I know I should have asked before, but”—I met his steady gaze—“how do you feel about chasing a
one-legged woman around your bedroom?”
He put his arms around me, and I felt the wetness on his face just before he kissed me. I didn’t personally
start crying again until he whispered, “Impatient to see how fast you are.”
Later, a long time later, Kol told me how the Hsktskt and the League had both retreated, but not
because of our unexpected stand. While we were defending the Tåna, an enormous armada of ships had
arrived to confront both aggressors and protect the surface from further assault.
Even more surprising, all the ships came from Joren.
“There are ships from every HouseClan under the Mother,” Kol told me. “Including the HouseClans of
our ClanMothers.”
“Why would they come now?”
“I do not know, but there is someone here who may be able to tell you.” He moved away, and I saw
Enale Raska, wearing a pilot’s flight suit, waiting at the foot of my berth.
“You looked better the last time we met, my ClanNiece,” she said, and came closer. “I was very glad to
hear that you had survived intact.”
“Mostly.” I glanced down at my leg. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear anyone from the Raska call me
Clan-anything.”
“I persisted in questioning our ClanLeader until he related the entire story of your ClanMother’s ordeal.”
She made a rather terse gesture I’d only seen Kol make when he was extremely ticked off. “We, the
younger Raska, were never told. I would not have allowed you to be turned away by my ClanFather as
cruelly as you were, had I known.”
Maybe there was hope for the more uptight Jorenians yet. “I really didn’t want to cause any trouble for
your family. My mother loved your father very much.” I felt suddenly old and tired and my head was
starting to hurt. “I’d like to talk to you more, when I get out of here.”
“I would enjoy that as well.” She touched my hand. “Walk within beauty, my ClanNiece.”
It took a few more days before I was healed enough to occupy a glidechair. The Jorenian surgeons who
had come down to Reytalon to perform the lifesaving surgery on me felt very optimistic about my
recovery.
“With the recent advances in reconstruct technology, we can fit you with a prosthesis that will return full
mobility,” the doctor told me. “It will also allow you to regain the sensation and reaction reflexes you had
prior to amputation.”
From what they’d told me, the technology was available virtually everywhere. “Why wouldn’t the Tåna do
that for me?”
“I questioned the healer in charge of this facility.” The Jorenian male made a disgusted gesture. “This
Blade Master had ordered him to do nothing but amputate. Apparently he wished to exercise some sort
of control over your condition.”
Or make me into what he had become. The image of Kieran’s face swam in my head for a moment,
but I shoved it away. My father had ended up a human brain encased in a drone body; I was simply
going to have a fancy peg leg.
As soon as I was able to travel, Kol took me up to the WindMaze, HouseClan Varena’s flagship, where
his ClanMother had asked the seven of us to gather for a meeting with leaders from all of the other
HouseClans.
I could feel how tense Kol was as we entered the room. The 227 men and women around the huge
conference table looked deadly serious.
If they were just going to banish us from Joren, no way would they send all these people to deliver
the message.
There were six empty chairs, which Kol and the others occupied. I slid my glidechair into the space
between Kol and Galena. For a moment everyone just looked at us.
We did have a fairly disreputable appearance. I, for obvious reasons; Kol, Nalek, and Danea were all
covered with bruises and lacerations; and Galena had one of her wings bandaged. Two of Osrea’s limbs
were in splints, and Renor had a patch of silicon cement sprayed over one side of his head.
“The Houses of the Mother are before you.” Kol’s ClanMother, Qelta, stood up at the head of the table.
“A member from every HouseClan on Joren is present here.”
“How did you come to be here?” Kol asked.
“Your winged ClanSister may wish to tell you that.”
Galena blushed a little as she rose to her feet. “I have been in contact with our people several times since
we came to Reytalon. My ClanMother had a transmitter implanted when I was young, in the event I ever
became lost.” Her iridescent eyes gleamed. “At first I just used it to reassure her that I was well. When it
became clear that we would not be rescued from the Hsktskt and the League, I sent a signal to the Ruling
Council, requesting their assistance.”
Well, well. I gave my little sister a grin. Who would have thought Birdie capable of covert operations
?
“Why would you come to our aid?” Osrea wanted to know, his black tongue flickering in and out. “You
have only tolerated us in the past.”
“Our people became fascinated with your activities, through reports we received from Galena’s
ClanMother.” Qelta activated a wall screen, and we watched and listened to a news broadcast from
Joren. Our photoscans and details of the battle with the League and Hsktskt were reported, and
schematics of the Tåna were displayed so the rep
orter could detail our attack strategies. “You never
abandoned your Jorenian ideals, and created neutrality where none existed before. For that, you have
become heroes to our people.”
So we were superstars now. “You don’t send eight hundred ships to get autographs,” I said.
“True.” Qelta smiled at me—actually smiled at me—then nodded to a group of Jorenians wearing
ClanLeader insignia. Seven of them stood up and faced us.
One of them was Skalea, ClanLeader Raska, and he looked right at me as he spoke for the group. “We
lost seven of our kin to slavers once. We could not permit it to happen again. The oath we took was one
to protect you children, but in keeping our silence we formed resentment against you, who have done no
wrong. We saw not the Jorenian ClanMother in each of you, but only the slavers who dishonored them.
For that, your HouseClans ask your pardon.”
“Why the sudden change of heart?” I couldn’t help pushing. The clan needed to hear the entire truth, and
not from me. “You don’t treat people like dirt for twenty-five years and suddenly adore them overnight.
