He shook his head to bring his thoughts back to the present moment as the last report ended. Rhianni looked up, and there were char-dark smears under her eyes. Petroc felt something tight clutch around his throat and weave through his gut. The stirring in the Black Pit signaled nothing but trouble. Rhianni was right. They had to strike now, before the enemy had a clue that they were ready.
More than three-quarters of the Rovers were in place. Communication relay stations were primed with explosives to knock out the enemy's power to coordinate.
"We have all the evidence we need to disband the government of Mallachrom right now." Rhianni spared a stiff smile when sighs and a few muffled cheers rose from the nearly three dozen conspirators around the table.
Blue sparked in her eyes, and Petroc saw the images flitting through her mind--extremely pregnant women and obese women. Too many. It bothered him that she kept chewing on that anomaly. There was something important in there, some detail they had all missed, and it ate at her.
Ate at her like that nightmare vision wanted to eat at her.
He flinched and gripped the arms of his chair.
The enemy wanted to enter Rhianni's body as he had entered and filled her scant hours ago. It wanted to take her over from inside her womb.
"The women are the key," he whispered around the nausea strangling him. "Pregnant women and obese women. Something invaded them. It's using their reproductive organs."
Rhianni turned to stare. Her face slowly went whiter than paper.
"It wants you, Rhianni. You're the next stage of the Taken. Born, not made. If it can use you, take you over, it'll have the whole planet."
Silence shrieked through the room. Then the questions, the demands for explanation bombarded them.
Petroc was gratified at the horror, the fierce, protective denial that focused around Rhianni. Cianna moved from her seat at the other end of the table to stand with Rhianni and hold her hand. As if her very presence could drive away the invader.
"We'll have a detail set aside just to watch all the women," Gan promised, once they had talked through the possibilities and theories. "If they're being used, directed by the enemy, then they'll be the most dangerous ones when the resistance starts."
"Keep the young women separate," Rhianni said. Frown creases formed between her brows as she spoke. Petroc could only glimpse the ideas flickering through her mind. "There's dissension among the ranks. Grandmother wants me to visit the Black Pit. Maybe to get me inside where I can be..." She shook her head, as if chasing away a pesky insect. "But Janese urged me not to go near it. Keep the two age groups separate. Maybe that'll work to our advantage."
"Assembly?" Gan pushed his chair back to stand when Rhianni nodded, but stopped when she raised her hand.
"We're ready to fight, but not as ready as I wanted to be. Not by a Mallachrom winter." She swept the table of conspirators with her gaze again. "First and most important step is to set up planet-wide surveillance, so if the uprising comes, we know what the enemy is doing. No matter how crippled we become on the ground. I want everybody in position with doubled precautions and twice the amount of weaponry you think you need." She took a long, deep breath. "We have to quash the uprising immediately, so we can turn our heavy firepower on the Pit. Nothing else matters."
Their minds touched, just for a moment, a heartbeat.
I wish Uncle Choran had some answers for us. What is taking so long, analyzing that air sample?
It's going to work, he soothed. The Shadows chose you. Everything is in place. We're going to win.
Promise?
Rhianni concentrated on the Rover technician setting up the link from the Council Chamber to the planet-wide address system. Anything to keep from feeling and telegraphing a single clue to the people entering the room.
She slid her fingers into her collar, rubbing against the irritation caused by her shock suit. The last three days, she had grown increasingly uncomfortable inside her protective shell, as if the sweat and waste products that collected against her skin had somehow become toxic to her. Sighing, Rhianni pressed the magnetic seals at her neck and wrists. It left the bottom half of her shock suit still functioning, but loosened the skin-tight properties and reduced the electrical field encasing her upper torso. Exhaling a little too loudly, she muffled a sigh of relief. Cooler air slid inside her shock suit, soothing the irritation and heat.
Something was definitely wrong with her. Perhaps a reaction to yet another change in her body in the last few days? Rhianni bit her lip against a grin as a ridiculous thought flittered through her mind. What if her body had changed just from making love to Petroc?
She would have to ask Cianna to give her a complete examination, and then explain some of the facts of life as they applied to the Taken.
The Council filed into their tiered rows. Rhianni's personal guard and staff stood to her right. She took her seat at a table with a simple microphone, prepared to speak to the entire planet, disband the Council, and put Mallachrom under military rule.
As soon as everyone was in place, the Rovers surrounding the building would come inside, arresting the Council and their aides. Everyone had been called to the meeting. Not one person could be allowed to stay outside and have a chance to escape. There was no certainty how many of the Council and their support staff and important officers in the central government of the colony were involved. That meant no one could be allowed to leave until they had been examined physically and mentally, to determine who were puppets and who were dupes. As far as anyone knew, Rhianni was only making her regularly scheduled report on security measures. She didn't doubt someone had heard about the latest changes she'd instituted, and was prepared to argue. She didn't intend to give them a chance.
Just five more minutes, ten at the most, and those doors to the Council's chamber could be closed. All communication to the outside would be momentarily jammed. Then the Rovers could move in.
A tiny voice spoke three code words in the speaker in her ear. Rhianni stood. The remote sensor on the microphone followed, raising the telescoping stand to stay with her and catch all her words when she began speaking. Three more minutes. The last official on the list had just walked through the doors from the plaza and would be at the doors of the Council chamber in two minutes. With the shutting of the chamber doors, the final phase of rescuing Mallachrom would begin.
A raging shriek erupted, reverberating off the walls, making many wince and cover their ears.
For two seconds, Rhianni stared, as rage contorted Janese's usually composed, slightly helpless expression. Everyone else stared, stunned at the sudden outburst from a woman who had moved among them like a shadow. Janese pulled a squat, fat gun from the wide sleeve of her fancy dress. Small, matte black, with a wide, incongruous bulb in the barrel. It was a pellet gun, the ammunition made to shatter inside the victim's body and shred vital organs.
"Rhianni!" Petroc leaped forward and pushed her aside. She fell hard, hitting her ribs against the table, painful through the reduced protection of her shock suit. He dove at Janese.
"Petroc, don't!"
Movement in the doorway stopped the doors from closing. Enforcers ran into the room. Which Enforcers--allies or enemies?
He went low to knock Janese off her feet as she raced up the steps to the platform where Rhianni struggled upright. The gun fired, pointed at her and sweeping up as they went tumbling down the eight steps to the floor. Her uniform burst into pinprick flames. The force of the blast spun her around as flames and shattering pellets traveled up her hip, her ribs, her arm, heading for her face. It all happened in a matter of microseconds. She stumbled. Rhianni gasped as her suit crumpled under the onslaught at close range. The resistant material didn't tear, but the impact translated to her flesh and bones, penetrating the reduced protective field, bruising flesh and battering at her bones. A strangled scream escaped her with the breath knocked from her body. She twisted, trying to avoid the pellets that seemed to search for her unprotected face.<
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The impact slammed her against the wall, making her head ring. She stared as Janese and Petroc tumbled into chairs. Rhianni slid down to the floor, unable to breathe, her ribs aching as if broken. In the stunned hush of the room, she heard the dull thud and the crack of bones snapping.
Petroc got up first. People ran for the door. Gan and his Enforcers shouted orders.
Janese lay in a heap, her body twisted in an impossible angle. Rhianni had seen a man lie that way, the eyes staring, mouth falling open, the spine snapped neatly in two.
"Rhianni?" Petroc staggered back to her, a bruise already appearing dark across his cheek, blood smearing his face where a table edge had cut him above his eyebrow.
Muffled squeaks, whistles and clicks erupted. Nightmare memories washed through her.
"Get away from her!" she shouted--or tried to shout. Her insides felt shredded. How many ribs had broken? She shuddered, thinking of the damage she might have suffered--she might already be dead--if she hadn't been wearing her shock suit, which she had partially deactivated for the sake of comfort.
Women screamed. Janese lay still but her impossibly pregnant belly writhed. A dark stain appeared in the cloth covering the dome of distended flesh. It spread, blood flowing freely. Rhianni gagged, blood in her mouth. She knew what would happen, but refused to accept it. Not here, on Mallachrom. Her home.
Janese's gown tore, the scream of the cloth like a Human protest of pain. Blood flowed. Panicked onlookers scattered like birds, trampling each other and tripping over furniture in their haste to flee.
Rhianni thought of her own belly someday huge with Petroc's child, and horror wrung a strangled scream from her. Petroc dropped down on his knees next to her. She choked on agony when he tried to wrap his arms around her and help her sit up.
The first uniformed Rovers poured through the doors, shoving aside the fleeing civilians.
Multiple eyes on stalks protruded from the gore of Janese's shredded body. Clawed paws as long as Rhianni's fingers extended, as if to rip the air apart. A bulbous head, blood-streaked, poisonous green and dotted with yellow, emerged into the rose-tinted light of the Council chamber. Its round, teeth-fringed mouth let out a shriek exactly like the scream Janese released before she attacked. Glowing green appendages the size of Rhianni's index finger hung from the sides of the creature. A few dropped off and wriggled through the blood and torn flesh that used to be Janese.
The eye stalks focused on Rhianni.
Talroqi queen. But not Talroqi. Too small. The confusion of it all swamped her. She didn't know how to explain what gut instinct shouted in overwhelmed terror.
"Burner rod!" Petroc shouted. He vaulted over two tables and snatched the burner from an Enforcer's hands before the woman had it half-detached from her utility belt.
A low whine cut the air as Petroc aimed and fired. A flash of heat and blood-tinted light scorched bystanders. Rovers leaped over tables and chairs and surrounded Janese's corpse, adding their weapons to the onslaught. The sound of their weapons firing drowned out the screams as the Council chamber emptied and the shouted orders as Rovers struggled to control them.
Rhianni forced her eyes to stay open as the mutated Talroqi crisped, boiled and exploded in flames. Keep going, she urged Petroc. Speaking was impossible. She could barely get the breath to keep from blacking out. She forced herself to stay upright, her eyes open, until Janese's body and the Talroqi were nothing more than smoking char.
Anni? Petroc settled down next to her on the floor, holding her hand, cupping her face. His touch barely cut through the agony, the inability to breathe, the taste of her own blood in her mouth. "Medic!"
Catch them. Don't let them get away. It was hard to even think now, all her concentration focused on taking another breath, resisting the burning that tried to drag her consciousness away into a fiery pit ringed with teeth that tried to shred and devour her. All those pregnant women...
"It's okay. Let your Rovers do their job. We're getting you out of here."
Home. If she was going to die, she wanted to go home.
"Sure. We'll take you home. Here's the medic."
Petroc held her hand, and even after the blessed cool relief of anesthetic came between her and the torn, burning, drowning sensation, he was there, holding tight to her soul.
Petroc stood in the doorway of Rhianni's bedroom in her parents' home and watched Cianna lightly run her hands over Rhianni from toes to forehead. This in-depth empathy sensing never failed to confuse him. Even as the central focus of the Merger, he still couldn't wrap his mind around the concept of empathy. He could only be glad it was real, and it worked on Rhianni.
His lover. His wife.
He forced himself to hold still, silent, enduring the anguish on her behalf as Cianna spread healing ointment on the bloody black bruises marking Rhianni's unconscious body from shoulders to thighs. Her shock suit had protected her from the shredding of the pellets, but had only absorbed a fraction of the killing impact. He had caressed that mottled skin when it had been smooth, flawless and hot under his hands.
He could still feel her arms wrapped tight around him, the same arms lying limp at her sides, looking so fragile a breath might break them.
He couldn't remember her laughter when he tickled her, or the husky passion of her voice. He couldn't remember because the pain that leaped from her mind to his as she fought to stay conscious had wiped out the other memories.
Starfire lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, ears flat against his head, gaze fastened unblinking on Rhianni. The Shadow had appeared from nowhere when they reached her house at QSE. The creature refused to leave her side, and no one was in any mood to keep him away.
"You're not doing either of us any good," Cianna said, turning to face him. "She can feel your worry and it echoes in her just strong enough to block me. Go outside and leave my patient in peace. For a while?" she added, softening her stern expression.
"Cianna, can you--"
"I'm doing everything I can. Luckily, Rhianni is a very ordered, healthy person. That makes it easier to get in and help her heal herself. But I won't make any promises, understand?"
"Sure." Petroc stood. His back ached from sitting stiff and alert for so long. He kissed the back of Rhianni's hand, then put her arm in place outside the thin blanket. "I'm going, but if I don't hear from you in two hours, I'm returning, no matter what you say."
"Go save the planet, will you?" Cianna smiled. Her voice cracked from fatigue and red lines marred her eyes. She still gave him hope.
Petroc paused in the doorway to study Rhianni one more time. Someone had loosed her hair from her braids. It spread out over the pillow in a dark wave, increasing the pallor of her skin. Her lips looked washed out and thin. They had been dark just that morning, bruised by hungry passion. Her chest hardly moved under the stiff bandages.
"Take care of her," he whispered to Starfire.
The Shadow met his gaze. Blue fire sparked and whirled in those enormous eyes. Petroc sensed a promise in that inscrutable stare. Rhianni was the focal point they had been waiting for. The Shadows wouldn't let her die.
Petroc rubbed his index finger over the scar on his thumb. As clearly as if it had just happened, he remembered the day they had made their vows. Starfire had licked their hands and sealed the cuts in their thumbs instantly.
"Cianna...this is going to sound crazy, but leave her alone and let Starfire have a go at her."
"You're right, it sounds crazy." Cianna turned from her patient. She must have seen something in Petroc's face because she frowned, then really looked at the Shadow. "Sometimes I forget there's so much we don't know yet," she whispered.
Gan, Broga and Cae waited in silence in the kitchen as Petroc joined them. He took a few deep breaths to brace himself before speaking.
"Cianna won't say anything, but Rhianni's going to be all right."
"Good, because we have to move her. The sooner the better," Gan hurried to add. "Half the Council evaded the sweep
arrests. They sacrificed a lot of their own people--suicide bombs under their clothes--creating a distraction to let them break free. Like they were prepared for something like this to happen. Their Enforcers are on the hunt. They want Rhianni in prison as a traitor, the rest of the Council released, and you hung for killing Janese. Not exactly in that order."
So, all the disasters they had tried to foresee and prevent had hit. Even if everything had gone according to plan and Rhianni had made her announcement to the colony and shut down the government, it might have ended up like this, with the planet skidding into civil war. Would it have been any different if Janese hadn't broken her neck in the fall? What if the woman had succeeded in killing Rhianni, hitting her face with the pellet gun? Or worse, what if the Talroqi had somehow succeeded in transferring its control from the dead woman, to his wife?
He shuddered, reliving that moment when the mutant Talroqi emerged from the woman's dead body. Petroc hadn't known what it was, until he touched Rhianni's memories. He saw the atrocities the aliens perpetrated on Human beings, using them as food, hosts, and puppets in the battle to take over the Human-inhabited portions of the universe.
Rhianni would live. That was the important thing. He had to keep her safe, keep the military rule secure and protect everyone he could until the Rover Corps arrived. Petroc decided to evacuate her to the furthest illegal Taken settlement. No one would look for her so close to the Black Pit. It was a calculated risk, but the only one worth taking. He prayed Starfire could get Rhianni on her feet soon. Then, while he maintained the holding action in Core, she had to lead the destruction of the Black Pit. It was the only way they were going to win.
All the answers were coming clear now.
The Shadows had taken the children so long ago to prepare for this day, when the Talroqi nest exploded to infest this corner of the galaxy.
They knew why the Council of Mallachrom had worked against the Taken, why all requests for help and reports about the Black Pit had been quashed, why those who asked the wrong questions vanished. The Council was controlled by mutated Talroqi, living inside the Human bodies they had taken over.
Shadows of Mallachrom, Book 1: Blue Fire Page 22
