by S. E. Smith
“Hologram deck? You mean, like when you wear one of those virtual reality masks and feel like you are really there?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
Emma laughed and threaded her arm through Samara’s. “Something like that, only much better,” Emma enticed.
“I’ll wait outside,” Crom groused, walking past them.
Samara looked at Emma with a curious expression. “What’s wrong with him? He’s been glued to us like a fly stuck to flypaper and now he doesn’t want to go,” she murmured.
Emma glanced under her lashes at Crom and leaned close. “He did a random program once and ended up in the middle of the desert. He swears it took him a month to get the sand out of the crack of his ass,” she replied with a giggle.
Samara couldn’t help looking at the big guy’s tight ass as he walked ahead of them. The guy may have a light coating of fur over his body, and he definitely looked like an alien, but damn if he didn’t nicely fill out a pair of pants. His snort of disdain told her and Emma that he was listening to their conversation.
“That would be cool,” she said.
“Where would you like to go?” Emma asked.
Samara frowned. “What do you mean?”
Emma waved a hand at the computer screen. “You just say a place and the computer will generate it,” she said.
“A place? Like any place in the world?” she repeated.
Emma laughed and nodded. “Well, any place that has been programmed into the computer,” she amended.
“Don’t pick Zanzibar or the Wastelands,” Crom warned. “They are hideous planets with nothing but endless mounds of sand.”
“Is Earth programmed in it?” Samara asked.
Emma nodded. “Yes. Ha’ven had it added so that I could visit whenever I felt homesick,” she said.
Samara bit her lip. “I always wanted to go to Paris,” she confessed.
Emma grinned. “Then Paris it will be,” she announced.
“Along the river where the used book stalls are,” Samara added. Emma gave her an inquiring look. She grinned and shrugged. “It’s a scene from one of my favorite movies.”
“Paris, France, Earth simulation,” Emma asked of the computer.
“Generation complete,” the computer replied.
The door to the hologram room opened. Through the opening, Samara gaped at the tree-lined sidewalk. Pedestrians strolled around, stopping at the displays of used books and artists lining the Seine River. Behind them, she could see boats traveling along the waterway. In awe, she stepped through the entrance after Emma. The door behind her closed and disappeared.
They stood on the sidewalk, taking in the surrounding sights. Curious, she walked over and ran the tips of her fingers along a row of books. She could feel the textures of the printed cloth covers against her fingertips. A pedestrian walking by bumped into her and murmured a quick apology.
“How is this possible?” she breathed, watching the distracted woman hurry away as she tried to catch up with her child.
Emma shook her head. “Don’t ask me. Ha’ven tried to explain the science behind it, and it went over my head. I think it’s something like the replicators, only it’s a temporary thing,” she confessed with a laugh.
“Who cares about the science. This is cool,” she laughed, twirling in a circle. “I want to see it all.”
Four hours later, Emma ruefully said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to sit this part out. I… I don’t do well in confined areas and I have to admit I need a nap.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve been dragging you all over the place and never thought about how exhausting it must be,” Samara said with an apologetic look.
Emma shook her head. “I’ve had a wonderful time. I just need to lay down for a bit. The last few months have been pretty exhausting for me,” she confessed.
“I’ll walk with you back to your cabin. I can always visit again,” she said.
“No, you really wanted to go through the catacombs. Why don’t you stay here?” Emma suggested.
Samara bit her lip and gazed longingly at the phonebooth-sized entrance to the catacombs. The underground tunnels had been at the top of her must-see list for Paris sites. She looked back at Emma when the other woman touched her arm.
“Stay and have fun,” Emma encouraged.
“What about Crom?” she asked with an uncertain expression.
Emma chuckled. “If he hasn’t died from boredom or been arrested for beating someone up, I’m sure he’ll be alright with you staying a bit longer. I’ll check to see if he would like to join you. Something tells me he might enjoy learning more about humans,” she replied.
“That would be fun,” Samara agreed.
“I’ll meet up with you later,” Emma promised.
“I’ll see you then and tell you if I learn anything new,” Samara replied with a grateful smile.
She watched as Emma ordered the computer simulation to reveal the exit. It was shocking to see that they were only a few dozen feet from it. It felt like they had walked miles!
“Whoa, that is so cool,” she breathed.
Emma laughed. “Enjoy. I’m off for a nap,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“Tell Crom I’ll be in the catacombs,” she called behind Emma.
She waited a few minutes before turning and heading for the entrance to the catacombs. She stepped through the door and smiled at the attendant. Another advantage of the simulator was that there were no lines and no money was necessary for anything.
“Please be careful. There are 131 steps leading down to the catacombs and 112 steps leading back up,” the attendant said, handing her a headset.
“Thank you,” Samara replied with a happy grin.
She adjusted the headset over her ears before she stepped through the doorway and descended the curving steps. She ran her hand along the stone wall, marveling at the realistic feel against her fingertips. Shaking her head in amazement, she tried to think of other places she would like to visit.
“It’s a good thing they didn’t have one of these things at the high school I went to. No one would have ever left,” she mused.
The temperature dropped several degrees by the time she reached the bottom, and she shivered. A wide, arched, dimly lit corridor angled downward. She followed the path deeper into the catacombs, listening to the virtual tour guide.
In the late eighteenth century, when major public health problems associated with the city’s above ground cemeteries led to a decision to transfer their contents to an underground site…
Chapter Twenty-Five
Outer region of Heron Prime
Narissa Ha’darra shivered as cold air swirled around her in the unheated glass prison cell. Through the transparent barrier, she noticed dark, uneven walls. The layers of iron-ore and silicates indicated that the prison cell was in an abandoned Antrox mine.
She winced with pain and gently touched her swollen lip. She sent a wave of healing energy to the damaged area. Lifting her hands higher, she did the same to the cut on her forehead and the bruises on her cheek. The bruises on her arms and wrists would have to wait until her hands were free before she could heal them.
She turned when she heard the sound of an outer door opening. A tall, broad shouldered man strode through the doorway. Behind him, she noticed a vast room filled with electronic equipment. The man paused outside of her cell and studied her.
Trying to intimidate me, she thought.
She lifted her chin and returned the man’s glacial scrutiny with a haughty glare of her own. She would never bow to the evil she saw lurking in his eyes. He pressed on the locking mechanism. They were both silent as the door slid open, and he stepped inside.
“Narissa,” the man greeted.
“Queen Ha’darra to you,” Narissa coolly replied.
The man’s eyes narrowed. She swallowed but remained still when he took a threatening step closer. She flexed her fingers, drew on the energy surrounding her, and enveloped herself with an in
visible shield.
“Queen Ha’darra,” he repeated before reaching out and stroking her cheek. “I am General Hamade Dos.”
She turned her head away from his touch. He chuckled at her disdain. An electrical charge shot out from her shield and zapped the tips of his fingers. She knew the charge must have been painful, but Hamade gave no indication that he felt it.
“A General of what? Deceit? You are nothing but a traitor to your people, Dos. You have made a grave mistake kidnapping me. Do you really believe that my sons will not find you?” she scoffed.
Hamade chuckled again. A shiver of unease ran through her at the menacing sound. It was not the sound of someone who was worried about the consequences of his actions.
“I would be very disappointed if they didn’t,” he coolly replied, lowering his hand from her cheek.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“To see for myself if our little experiment works,” he replied.
“What… experiment?” Narissa warily asked.
Narissa stepped back when two people entered the small cell carrying a cylinder. A dark shape agitatedly moved inside it. She flinched when Hamade reached for it.
“Welcome to the beginning of the end for the Ha’darra family,” he maliciously chuckled.
“No…,” Narissa hissed in horror and recoiled.
Hologram deck:
Samara was studying the intricately carved castle created by one of the excavators when an unexpected sense of unease filled her. She rose to her feet and scanned the surrounding area. Holographic tourists moved past her like ghosts.
She pulled the tour-guide headphones from her head and switched off the audio player. A young couple walked by her followed by a single woman in her fifties and an old man with a cane. They continued along the passage.
A movement in the shadows drew her attention. The young woman who had been standing on the other side of the old man was now partially blurred. There was a haze of swirling blood-red with green dots surrounding the woman.
“The castle is beautiful,” the woman reflected, stepping closer to her.
Samara nodded and glanced at the stone carving. “It is. It must have been agonizing and therapeutic for the man who carved it,” she said.
“Why do you say that?” the woman inquired.
Samara indicated her headphones. “This said the man who carved this was imprisoned for years and the castle was the only thing he could see. I imagine the conditions of the prison were horrible and seeing such a beautiful castle was like salt in a wound,” she reflected.
“The imprisonment could be no worse than confinement in an Antrox mine or a Curizan prison,” the woman replied.
Samara started when she noticed that the woman had stepped closer while she was distracted. She tried to step aside, but the woman blocked her path. Samara’s eyes widened as it dawned on her that none of the other holograms had the swirling aura around them.
“Computer, end simulation,” she called out.
The area around her faded. The woman did not. Samara backed up. She looked around wildly, scanning for the exit. The woman stood between her and the door.
“What happened on Ha’darra’s shuttle? How did he survive?” the woman demanded.
Samara frowned. “What in the hell are you talking about?” she demanded.
“The entity I placed on his ship—how did he survive it?” the woman persisted.
The woman gripped Samara’s arm in a bruising hold and Samara hissed with shock when the woman’s hand and arm rippled and changed. Gone was the pale skin of a young French woman. In its place were dark green scales.
“What the hell are you?” Samara demanded in a shaky voice.
The woman’s grip tightened and her claws dug into Samara’s arm. Samara instinctively reacted. She swung, punching the woman in her forearm. Her assailant gasped and yanked her hand back, cradling her arm.
“Computer, simulate Paul Grove’s Ranch—Earth,” Samara frantically ordered.
The landscape surrounding her rippled and changed. The familiar buildings and wooded area appeared. The woman snarled at her and struck out. Samara ducked and rushed the woman. She gripped her assailant’s arms and the woman shrieked with fury.
“Never start a fight with a woman who has five older brothers, bitch,” Samara snapped as she drove her knee into the woman’s groin.
“I’ll kill you,” the woman hissed, falling on her side.
“Good luck trying,” Samara retorted.
The woman reached for a weapon at her waist and Samara kicked out, her foot connecting with her assailant’s injured arm. The impact sent the small device sliding across the ground. Samara dove after the device, falling when the lizard woman wrapped a clawed hand around her ankle.
“Samara, where are you?” Crom’s booming deep voice called.
“Crom! Help!” she cried out.
She rolled onto her back and kicked out at the woman. The illusion of the woman evaporated. In her place was Adalard. Samara gaped, the moment of disorientation paralyzing her.
“Adalard?” she whispered.
“Samara, it’s okay. Tell me how you were able to see who the woman was,” he ordered.
She scrambled back, shaking her head. “You’re not Adalard. You’re… you’re some kind of chameleon,” she said.
“How did you escape the entity?” Adalard’s deep voice demanded.
“Fuck off,” Samara growled, kicking at the pseudo-Adalard figure.
She rolled, scrambling to reach the device. She wrapped her fingers around it and twisted back around, but the chameleon had disappeared.
“Lady Samara,” Crom said, hurrying forward.
Samara turned the weapon on Crom. He stopped and held his hands up. She released a trembling breath when she noticed that his aura was normal. Lowering the device to her lap, she reached out for his hand when he held it out.
“What happened?” he asked.
Samara rubbed her bruised arm. “Some lizard-shifter attacked me,” she said.
Crom uttered a low, rumbling growl and scanned the area. “Computer, end simulation,” he ordered.
The familiar landscape faded, leaving Samara with a deep sense of loss. The room was empty save for them. She would have thought she had imagined the whole incident if not for the ache in her arm and the weapon in her hand. Her stomach clenched at the memory of the alien creature in Adalard’s form.
“Did the Changeling hurt you?” Crom asked.
She swallowed and shook her head. “No… no, I’m fine. It just shook me up a little. I’ll be alright,” she quietly replied. She looked down at her hand before offering the weapon to Crom. “I knocked this out of her—its—hand. I’m not sure if it will help you locate the perp,” she added.
“Come, let me escort you back to your quarters,” Crom replied.
Samara nodded. She followed him to the door, pausing in the doorway to look back into the empty room. A sigh slipped from her before she turned and followed Crom.
“I’m fine,” Samara said for the dozenth time. Her voice echoed in the narrow confines of their bathroom.
“You have bruises,” Adalard retorted in a gruff tone.
She laughed and shook her head. “Trust me when I tell you these are nothing. I’ve had a lot worse,” she replied.
He gently ran his fingers over the bruises and sent a burst of healing energy into the damaged tissue. She hissed in surprise when she felt the tingle.
“This should never have happened. You were supposed to be protected,” he said.
She looked up at him with a tender smile. “Crom couldn’t be in two places at once. I wanted to stay, and Emma was exhausted. The choice was simple. None of us could have anticipated that some lizard bitch would attack me. Crom was only gone for a few minutes. Heck, you even said there was no record of who this chameleon is or that they even entered the hologram deck through the main door. Now that I know what to look out for, I’ll be more careful,” she said.
“I should have told you there was a danger. I didn’t want…,” he said before he shook his head.
“You didn’t want what?” she asked, leaning back against the doorframe of the bathroom.
His tired sigh was deep as he wound his arms around her and pulled her close. When Crom had informed him of what happened, he was shaken to his core. The thought of something happening to Samara terrified him. It was a foreign emotion to him. He closed his eyes and rested his chin against the top of her head.
“I wanted to take you away from the danger of your brothers and protect you. Instead, I have brought you into a world far more dangerous,” he said.
“You asked me to come. I made the decision on my own. It doesn’t matter where you go in the universe, I guess. There will always be good guys like you and bad ones like my brothers somewhere in the mix. I can’t live my life in fear. I have to hope that everything will work out and fight like hell when it doesn’t. That is part of the adventure,” she said.
He opened his eyes and kissed the top of her head before leaning back and looking at her face. He gave her a tender smile, kissed her again, and cupped her cheeks.
“You are good at fighting,” he acknowledged.
She laughed. “You bet your ass I am. That lizard lady didn’t know what hit her,” she said with a wiggle of her nose.
“You are sure it was a female?” he asked.
She frowned and shook her head. “Not really. One minute she looked like one of the women you have on board and the next… the next she looked like you,” she confessed as she played with the fastenings on the front of his shirt.
Concern gripped him. Changelings were adept at mimicking, but their auras gave them away. If they had an ability to camouflage that as well as their biometrics, it would make them virtually invisible.
“What was really weird was the color surrounding her. That was what alerted me that something strange was going on,” she murmured.
He held her hands. “You saw something different?” he asked.
