Seduce Me in Dreams

by Jacquelyn Frank

  As Bronse continued to run at full bolt, he heard more mines explode and assumed that Ender had liked the idea of using them for cover and done so for himself. Of course, Ender could choose from any number of toys hidden in his vest. Lasher was Bronse’s main worry. Running full west would take him directly to the structure they had just left. With ordnance now announcing the crew’s presence, Nomaads would be crawling all over their location. That worried the commander more than the idea of Lasher getting hit by a sand flay.

  Bronse turned his attention forward and listened for the telltale whine of bladed wings. They sounded far behind him, and there was disorientation in their flight. It was a hesitant whipping sound rather than the fast cutting of the air on a sure target. Taking no chances, he kept running and would do so until he was a good mile from the nest. Hopefully, he wouldn’t hit another on the way.

  No sooner was that thought passing through his brain than the desert seemed to suddenly reach up and grab him. Bronse fell in an awkward sprawl as his legs were sucked down into the sand. He roared in fury and frustration as the sinkhole opened up to take him in and sand quickly rushed down the sides of the hole to cover his head. There was a frightening black sensation of suffocation, only the mask on his face protecting him from inhaling sand. He tried to kick and claw from under the cursed black grains and their stifling heat, but the pressure was crushing him as the sand shifted and slid.

  And just as suddenly he was spat out.

  Like a grain of sand through an hourglass, he slid from the above world, through a bottleneck, and into the dark of the underworld. The trouble was that he was supported and buoyed up by the sand, however crushing it had been, until that point. Now he was in a free fall.

  For a few seconds at least.

  He crashed to a halt on his back in a huge pile of somewhat soft sand. The breath whooshed out of his body on impact; every bone and muscle was pounded by the force of deceleration. Sand was falling from above him in a heavy shower that, thankfully, began to diminish in force before it could bury him. Two full minutes seemed to pass before he could force his body to draw a breath. When he did, his body immediately kicked the gift back out in coughs and gasps of pain. Bronse hissed at the pain lancing through his right side like a spreading wildfire, and his left side was doing little better. Sand was still streaming down from above, slowly burying him. He had no choice but to move, even though he was certain that he’d cracked a few ribs. Cracked vertebrae were not an unreasonable supposition either, considering.

  Groaning, he managed to sit up, sand sifting off his body and out of his hair. He’d lost his helmet and his laser rifle, and the little gas mask had been torn from his face at some point. He tried breathing again, and settled for agonizing coughs and gasps. As long as he was getting oxygen, though, he wouldn’t be picky about the method. The night vision function of his goggles was still in working order, and he could see that he was sitting at the top of a very large pyramid of sand. As more sand continued to stream from above, it scattered and slowly rolled down the sides of the pile.

  Bronse gave in to the inevitable and, like the fresh influx of sand, began to slide down the pile. The instant his feet touched the solid rock of the cavern floor, he staggered to them and pulled out his hand laser. He shook his head hard, sending sand flying and pain lancing across his back, but he was breathing easier, so he counted that as a plus. He reached up, yanked off his goggles, and stowed them in a pocket. He flipped on his wrist light, and a brilliant spotlight lit up the areas where he pointed his fist. He seemed to be in one of the underground caverns that were sprawled underneath the desert. The caverns were usually occupied, although this one seemed empty at the moment, probably because it was proven to be dangerous. Flashing the light above him, he saw no possibility of exiting the way he had come. Sand was still trickling in from a tightly packed hole. He had disrupted the pressure when his weight had hit the sinkhole, and now it was restoring itself. He figured that the next sand hurricanes would hide and refill the sinkhole until the sand pile he had been sitting on reached the top of the cavern.

  Lowered into a ready crouch, he walked a circle of the immediate area, light and pistol pointed forward until he was positive he was alone. Only then did he lean back against one of the cool walls of the cavern and concentrate on fine-tuning his breathing and contemplating his next course of action.

  He touched the communications patch on his throat.

  “Honey … kids … I’m home,” he said softly.

  There was a nearly imperceptible crackle of static. His heart pounded with anxiety as he waited.

  “Hello, dear” came Lasher’s response at last.

  “Hi, Dad.” Justice.

  “Hey, Dad.” Ender.

  Everyone was safe. Bronse sighed with relief.

  “So how was your day, dear?” Lasher quipped softly.

  “Sucked,” Bronse said, coughing softly.

  “Guys, this place is crawling with movement,” Justice warned.

  “Copy that,” Bronse said quickly, straightening. “I’m in a bit of a real estate relocation situation. Need to find an exit. You all rally back to—”

  Bronse broke off as a sudden chill walked his spine.

  Ravenna.

  “Didn’t copy your last,” Lasher noted over the com.

  “Do not let them leave you … they will die without you.”

  The words of her prophecy suddenly rang like bells in his head. Without a single doubt, Bronse knew that this was the moment he had been dreading for so long. His choices and his decisions in this moment would determine who among them lived or died.

  Now, in this harrowing moment, he must truly be a leader.

  “You will die without them. You must stay together.”

  Now he must choose whether to believe in the unbelievable beyond a doubt, or leave his faith to the decade and more of military training that he had embedded in his very soul by act of repetitive pounding.

  “Didn’t copy your last,” Lasher repeated, sounding as anxious as Bronse would sound if the com had gone silent on him.

  “Belay my last,” Bronse said suddenly. “Rally to me. Do you copy? Rally to me.”

  There was a noted silence.

  “Copy that,” Lasher said firmly.

  “Copy.”

  “Copy you, Boss,” Justice said slowly.

  Bronse did not have to give them coordinates. Their instruments would bring them to him. “Be careful,” he warned. “I slid down a long rabbit hole. Didn’t even see it coming. And I didn’t kill the flays, so you might come across them.”

  Aboveground, Lasher exhaled a slow, tense breath. Bronse was asking them to cross to the north, back over the explosion points that had already drawn the enemy’s attention. The others could circle around, but Lasher’s own position was precarious because he was close to the target building. He kicked at the dead flay he had shot when he’d gained a moment’s advantage. The little bastards. They had managed to cause exactly what Bronse had been fearing would happen. They had forced them to split up. Now Bronse was drawing the whole crew toward serious danger just because some prophetic sensation was telling him that their lives would be at stake without him.

  “Kids, I’m coming to you. Rally to Ender’s position and wait till I get there. Copy?” Lasher said.

  “Copy.”

  “Copy.”

  Justice would reach Ender first. Lasher’s reading said that Ender was at the border and Justice was due south of him. They could take cover and would double their firepower if they stayed together. Now he had to risk his neck crossing east, then north, or the quicker northeast route, which would take him back over Ender’s now-exposed munitions fire line. Lasher decided to go northeast, praying that he could hide in the dunes if he came across anyone. He did not like Bronse being stuck alone “down a rabbit hole.” That meant he’d fallen into a pit of some kind. He could be injured, but he would not say so over the communications channel. Only the Great Being knew if the e
nemy had been given copies of their communications equipment by the traitor admiral. At this point, after seeing the size of the traps set for them, Lasher wouldn’t put anything past JuJuren. He was already praying, as he began to hustle over the sand, that they weren’t being tracked now that the explosions had given them away. If so, all they had going for them was a very small head start. Being closest to the enemy, he was in the most danger, but he was also endangering Ender and Justice by making them stand around and wait.

  He also prayed that Bronse’s gut instincts were up to snuff.

  As for Ender and Justice, as soon as they met up at Ender’s position, the look Jus gave him spoke eloquently of her confusion over the orders they were being given.

  “I know.” The arms master frowned as he rearranged the munitions on his vest so he had quicker access to what he wanted fast at hand. “But the boss has never let us down yet.”

  “There’s always a first time,” she muttered, stealing two spare light grenades from him. “Am I reading this right?” She showed him her VidPad screen.

  “Yeah. Looks like he’s underground.”

  “How the hell did that happen?” she wondered. “A trap?”

  “Doubt it. He would’ve said. The thing is, I don’t see an entrance near him.”

  “Well, he didn’t just pass through solid rock!”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Ender said with a shrug.

  Justice looked at him, aghast. “When did you become so wise and laid back?”

  He just gave her an infuriatingly smug smile. “Better concentrate on finding an underground entrance and mapping a route to the commander,” he told her.

  “Fuck. Where the hell is Trick when we need him?” she grumbled. She picked up the VidPad and began to study the readings so she could navigate them to the commander’s location.

  Bronse unzipped his vest, unable to bear the stricture of it as his bruised body began to swell around the back of his ribs. He needed to breathe, and that was far more important than well-groomed gear. He did not, however, relieve himself of any of the weight or equipment. A bunch of sand vacated his clothing, and he sighed as it eased away. There must have been five pounds of the stuff packed between his vest and shirt.

  Breathing easier and with time on his hands, Bronse began to widen his area of exploration. He snapped off his lights and, after fishing out his goggles and allowing his eyes to readjust to the dark, he continued his search, letting the technologically lighted terrain in his lenses show him a fair picture of his surroundings. He could see only in black and white, but otherwise the picture was clear.

  There was no telling whether this cavern was a rogue that had no outlet or connections to others, a highly unlikely and rare occurrence. It was far more likely that it joined up with a tunnel leading into a network that belonged to a tribe or to some of the miles of uninhabited or traveling caverns that the various tribes used. Bronse’s goal was to make certain that there were no immediate surprises. Perhaps, if he were lucky, he might find a quick exit to the surface where he could meet up with his crew.

  Moving on silent feet, keeping to the cool curve of the walls, he began to follow the readings on his VidPad. Justice and Ender were to his south and awaiting Lasher. Lasher was a quick-moving blip on his screen. Through the rock, Bronse could not read any other life-forms. His crew’s transponders were the only thing allowing him to follow their progress and movement. It was how they would find him as well. There was no way for him to tell what kinds of threats were awaiting his second, or if Ender and Justice were being closed in on. He would have to trust them to take care of themselves. There was nothing he could do from his current position. They were coming to him, and that was all he could manage.

  Well, almost.

  Just as he could not read life through the rock, neither could they. He would serve them best by getting aboveground, negotiating any underground sentients. Carefully he began to move southward. Because readings tended to bounce and echo in caves and caverns, he was best off abandoning the tech and working with his own senses. His pistol at the ready, and with goggles to guide him, he moved onward, keeping alert for any echoes.

  He had gone barely a hundred feet before he heard signs of life. It was a conversation in a guttural tribal language that Bronse was not familiar with. He could make out very few of the more universal references, but none of it was in any useful context. Waiting with bated breath, he pressed against the wall around the corner from the speakers. He quietly reached up and slid off his goggles. Sure enough, the corridor was lighted, a detail that his black-and-white tech did not differentiate.

  Dim as the light was, Bronse preferred to use his own eyes to guide him. The conversation began to fade away as the speakers moved off, and he slowly peered around the corner. The passage was lighted in only one direction, telling him what he already knew—that he had come from a dead end. If he walked into populated areas, he put himself at risk, but he could also follow the light and quickly find an exit. Besides, as long as there were only a few Nomaads, he could handle them. Even with cracked ribs, he assured himself. Just to be safe, he reached into his vest and pulled out a narc patch. He peeled it off and pressed it into the palm of his glove on his free hand. Now if he simply touched someone’s bare skin, they would be out in five seconds flat.

  He set the laser pistol to a very strong stun. He wasn’t out to kill any innocents—and he had to assume that they were innocent, despite their proximity to the trouble aboveground. The upper and lower worlds were like two different planets, and they often had little to do with each other in any given moment.

  But strangers were not welcome in either world, and a stranger he definitely was. Plus, Bronse’s equipment alone held a value for these people that would outdo Delran platinum. So, with trepidation and a slow, fortifying breath, he eased into the dimly lit passage. There were plenty of shadows, and he stuck to them as he began to pass doors—leather and wood bound, some solid metal—that closed off sectioned parts of the cave formations. In the upper world it was still night. It appeared that this tribe followed the day of that world, so there was almost no one about, although Bronse dodged a few close calls as he edged deeper into the lighted areas and cross corridors.

  After a left turn, he began to pass nothing but bolted metal doors. Bolted from the outside, he realized after he’d eased past a couple. That was when he saw the first guard. Swearing softly under his breath, he began to back away. The last place he needed to be was in a prison section! Heart pounding, ribs aching under the onslaught of his rapid breath, he flattened and crouched back into a curve of the cavern wall. Wearing black, he blended in with the dark shadows of the worn hollow. He managed to regulate his breathing into silence just as the guard swept past him, his burnoose fluttering and snapping in his wake. After the guard rounded a turn, Bronse straightened, then glanced at his VidPad. Lasher had finally reached the others. They were already headed in his direction, he realized with relief.

  Wanting to distance himself from the guarded section, Bronze began to move.

  Then he froze.

  It struck him softly, almost imperceptibly—a combination of awareness and sensory memory. Yet even so gentle a stimulus as it was, it impacted him like a blow to his spine that shuddered through his entire nervous system.

  The unmistakable uniqueness of the scent of exotic flowers combined with Ayalya spice.

  That and the sensation that he was balanced on a spear point of knowledge. Of need. It was a draw that demanded all of his attention, all of his senses, wiping away his military-trained skills that told him to focus on more important things.

  But his very essence told him that nothing was more important than this.

  There would never be anything more important than this.

  He moved forward quickly, as if in a trance, his movement instinctually careful and quiet even though he put no thought into it. He came around the bend in the tunnel and picked up speed. He saw the two guards standing at
attention by the door, but he made no attempt to slow or hide himself. Neither did he speak and give them any warning. Like a silent whirlwind he struck them. The nearest he cold-cocked with the crush of a swinging elbow.

  The Nomaad was out cold before he even crumpled to the floor. The second was reaching for his weapon, but Bronse was already there. He kneed him with powerful momentum in his belly. When he doubled over, Bronse cracked him in the back of his neck.

  Once both were in heaps on the floor, he reached to flatten his hand against the bare skin of their cheeks, dosing each with the narc patch. Then he glanced at the door they had been guarding. His heart was racing madly, and it had nothing to do with the brief battle and the ache in his ribs.

  He knew.

  He just knew.

  He searched the guards for keys, cursing softly when he realized they didn’t have them. Taking a moment to think and to wish Ender was there, he ran through his inventory in his mind. Studying the lock, he knew that his lock picks would do him no good. It was a strange multi-slatted tumbler that would require two sets of hands to pick. If he used plastique explosive he would attract attention, and he could not cut off his final chance at exiting this messed-up mission in one piece.

  But leaving without her was not an option.

  He touched his com patch.

  “ETA kids?”

  “Just looking for an inroad, honey,” Lasher informed him. “Give us ten more minutes.”

  “Listen, I’m in a civilized section. Be careful. And hurry.”

  “Copy that,” his second assured.

  Ten minutes were too long for him to sit exposed in the corridor. Ravenna had been right. He would get himself killed without his team to back him up.

  Then he remembered the small can of flash-freeze. He reached for it more quickly than his ribs would have liked, and yanked it free of his vest. He quickly attached the small tube to the can and turned to insert it in the metal lock. As he depressed the canister nozzle, gel began to ooze into the tumblers. Bronse felt the sudden cold flash across the entire metal surface of the door. Leaning so close to it, he could see his breath when he exhaled against it. Then, stopping the gel, he waited only ten seconds before standing up and body-slamming the door. The lock and catch shattered under the force of his weight.