“The General injured civilians in her hunt for the Disappeared. Again,” Turner frowned. “We aren’t to take orders from her. If she is found abusing her uniform, we are to arrest her.”
“Do you know where I can find her?” Cheoff asked.
“Let’s get you inside. I’ll have someone bring her in,” Turner suggested, pulling Cheoff toward the mansion, since he wasn’t going to the Marble.
“If she’s injured, I’d rather speak to her at home,” Cheoff said.
“If?” Turner scoffed. “You ordered her tortured.”
Cheoff froze, stunned that his Guard would accuse him of such a thing. When Parker had accused him of giving Rhodes a license to kill, he’d assumed there was an accident or a fight. Sikorsky’s accusations against Parker rang truer. Except Parker was visibly upset about Solvere. So who ordered the torture?
“Sir?” Turner said, touching Cheoff’s arm lightly. “Your face just got very white.”
Cheoff shuddered, feeling tears running down his cheeks, hot against his ice-cold skin. Turner tugged his hand, seating him on the ground by the steel barred fence.
“Sir?” Turner asked again, snapping his fingers in front of Cheoff’s eyes. “Governor Cheoff. Did you feel a strike? Please don’t be hit by a poison dart.”
Cheoff blinked. He couldn’t feel his own body. The dream of a peaceful, self-sufficient civilization seemed so far away.
“Were you ever tortured?” Cheoff asked.
Turner shook his head.
“Were you ever asked to hurt someone else?”
Turner sucked in his cheeks, ashamed. “I couldn’t… that’s why I was assigned to babysit you. It’s easier to die for a man than kill for him.”
“The killing stops now,” Cheoff said firmly. “Do you understand?”
Turner nodded, but he didn’t look like he believed.
“I need to speak with Solvere,” Cheoff said. He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t respond. He was ready to listen to Sikorsky now.
After six hours in and out of the surgical knitter, Doctor Eislen declared Tray healed enough to eat, and so far, he’d only thrown up half of the food. He was scared to eat, but felt sick when he was hungry. Doctor Eislen assured him that was psychosomatic, and the nanobot in his gut was working fine. He’d showered on his own without getting woozy from hunger, which was nice, although Tray would have preferred a less-traumatic application of Eislen’s treatment.
Danny had laid out fresh clothes for him—a shiny black suit, a silver vest, and blue socks. Tray put on the socks first to warm his feet. After so much pain, it was nice to be able to stand. His skin felt rough and dry from the hospital soap, and his hair was matted on one side from lying down.
“Danny, where did you go?” he whispered, sliding on his Virp. He aborted the vring when he saw four missed calls from Hero.
Tray’s heart skipped a beat. Mikayla had set a specific window between school and supper when he was allowed to call Hero, and if he didn’t call now, he’d miss it! There were still twenty minutes left in the window. Grabbing his shoes, Tray hurried into the hall, looking for some terminal he could hack that could get a signal to Quin. Finding a nurse’s station, he quickly linked his Virp to the console, then through to the 4, and made the call.
Pushing back his untamed hair, he tucked his Feather into place, and found the nearest closet to hide in. Typing as fast as he could with two thumbs, he kept rerouting the signal so the automated security wouldn’t knock him out of the system.
“Hi, daddy,” Hero greeted excitedly. “I can’t see you.”
“My vid’s not on,” Tray said. He wished he could see Hero and keep the channel open at the same time, but he only had one Virp projection plane, and he needed all of it to stay ahead of security.
“Turn it on!” Hero insisted, sounding like he was bouncing up and down. Hero liked to walk with the Virp and show Tray different bugs he’d found in the yard. He’d written long, detailed letters about the spider that lived outside his window.
“Not today,” Tray said.
“Mommy, the vid isn’t working,” Hero called.
“Tray, activate the vid!” Mikayla hollered from another room.
“I’d rather not. I’m not looking my best,” Tray laughed, imagining her longsuffering, yet beautiful expression. There was a change in the background noise, and Tray worried his signal had been dropped, but then Mikayla’s voice came on, crisper and clearer than before. She’d switched to a Feather.
“Are you mortally injured and lying in a ditch somewhere?” she accused.
“No. Why would you ask that?” Tray asked, offended. Sure, if he were dying, his last thoughts would be for his son, but he’d never make his child listen to that horror.
“I don’t know. Maybe because Sikorsky commandeered your ship to overthrow a government!” she hissed.
“You told me to leave,” Tray taunted.
“I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to take him with you. He’ll get you killed,” she growled, keeping her voice low to hide her anger from Hero.
“Oh, I’m touched. I thought you wanted me dead,” Tray sneered.
“No, just out of my life,” she said through gritted teeth. “Out of teleport distance from Hero. You brought this out in him. You made him a freak.”
“Talk to your father before you accuse me of cursing our son with teleportation,” Tray retorted. “We’d be in Rocan now if it weren’t for him.”
“Oh, right. The dying city with no resources. What a lovely vacation spot,” she jeered. “Sikorsky’s not going to let you leave Terrana until you get him what he wants.”
“Mikayla, I’m in a hospital right now. I’m in no position to overthrow a government,” Tray said.
“A Terranan hospital is worse than a ditch,” she groused. “If you fail Sikorsky, then he will keep us from you as punishment. I won’t let that happen. I’ll take Hero and disappear, just like your father did. You will never see either of us again.”
Tray inhaled sharply. Mikayla had kept Hero from him for years, and he knew she’d make good on her threat if he stepped out of line. She knew to bring up his father leaving. She knew all his pressure points.
The Virp beeped, warning him that he was about to lose the signal, and he kicked into high gear, worried that if this one call were dropped, it’d be the last.
“It won’t come to that,” he promised. “I can handle Sikorsky. Now let me talk to my son.”
“I wish you’d never come back into my life,” she said, her threat of vanishing giving way to her true frustration.
“And I wish you’d never left mine,” Tray said, his tone softening. “I love you, ‘Kay. Now, please, let me talk to Hero.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Tray heard Mikayla explaining to Hero that the vid wasn’t working, and they were going to play with the Feather today. Then there was a static rustle as she fit it to his little ear. Hero had to look cute and eager, and Tray admired the hell out of his ex for managing to keep a brave face for their son.
“Daddy, why is your vid broken?” Hero asked.
“I’m on Terrana, son. Everything breaks here,” Tray said.
“When are you coming back? My game is broken.” Tray had programmed a computer game for Hero, based on Oriana’s travels. They’d played it together the day they first met. It seemed like yesterday.
“Broken how?” Tray asked, glad for a topic that wasn’t spiders.
“I’m stuck on level eight. I get to the end, and it loops back to the beginning of the level. It won’t even let me start over,” Hero complained.
“I’ll take a look when I get a chance,” Tray promised. “In the mean time, you’ll just get really good at level eight.”
Tray asked a few more questions, troubleshooting the bug. It was weird how trivial, and yet, how important the conversation seemed. The closet door whipped open, and Danny swore in relief.
“Oh, thank Zive!” Danny exclaimed.
“Hero, do you want to say hi to Uncle Danny?” Tray smiled, not wanting to end his call.
Danny sliced his finger across his neck and shook his head. “Sikorsky’s back and Coro got himself arrested. We have to go.”
23
Janiya lay on her side, her broken hands arranged gingerly in front of her. Her brief interlude with Sikorsky played like a dream, brought on by her desperate desire to teleport something for Parker. But she was trapped in this cage. She wished she could remember her life with the Panoptica before she became a slave. She’d lost her language for Moonspeak, and even her understanding of that was slipping away. Her memories of Quin were fogged, and soon she wouldn’t know anything outside of this cage.
Her aging joints ached, but she couldn’t move her hands to massage them. The gravity had crushed the bones, and she was certain the fractures radiated throughout her body. The Panoptica family that she’d come here to find either didn’t exist, or didn’t want her.
The door opened and Janiya broke down in tears. She couldn’t handle another session of broken bones and lost memories. The more pressure they applied, the more her mind seemed to go blank, reverting to her slave state.
“Well come see her,” Parker crooned, leading the way into the room. She understood his intent, even though he spoke Terranan.
Then Rhodes pushed Damien Coro into the room, and the void in her mind flooded with memories of him. Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t get it to speak his name. She could remember his hand on her neck, teaching her to make sounds. He was the first person who believed she could speak, and he was a gentle teacher.
Damien limped toward her cage, his body showing signs of a cruel battering. She tried to warn him not to touch the cage, but Rhodes pushed his face against it, letting the shield shock him. Damien flew back, hitting the wall with the shackles, and Rhodes quickly exchanged the cuffs on his hands for the mounted restraints.
“How does she look?” Parker teased Damien, deactivating the shield on her cage. He grabbed her hair, pulling her out, keeping her face toward Damien as he strong-armed her into that loathsome chair. They didn’t need to gas her anymore to ensure her cooperation. Her hands were too broken to fight.
“She would help you if you treated her like a person,” Damien said, looking pitifully at her. Thirty-three years ago, she’d married Damien, and though she’d called him husband ever since, she wasn’t his equal. Legally, Damien was her guardian, and Janiya had never forgotten the patronizing chuckles as the documents were signed and her ownership transferred. A beige spot opened between them, and she saw the Hanyu stone in his pocket. Was he on Parker’s side? Was he here to force her to use her gift?
“I tried,” she whispered, the words coming in garbled syllables.
Parker looked expectantly at Damien. “Did she connect? Do you understand her?”
Damien shook his head. “I know how the Confluence works. I will tell you if you let us go.”
“You’ll tell us,” Rhodes said. He produced a long rod and Janiya saw in his mind the intention to skewer Damien.
“Hear him out, Colonel,” Parker said. “Tell us about the Confluence.”
“Sikorsky used it to get out of this very room,” Damien said. “Or did you not notice the grav-gun missing?”
Janiya tensed. It wasn’t a dream. She looked again at the source in Damien’s pocket. Was someone on the other side waiting for them?
Parker whipped around, looking at a cluttered table. He screamed in rage and swept the crate of gravity devices across the room, throwing one at Rhodes’ head. “Sikorsky’s Panoptica!”
“It was Sikorsky who accosted the governor,” Rhodes confirmed. “Santos knew.”
“How did I not know about him? How did Galen not know?” Parker raved. “Cheoff knows his face. He told me it was a crazy stranger.”
“Then he lied to you,” Damien said arrogantly. “Sikorsky told him what you’re planning. Cheoff is on to you. He’s going to stop you.”
“Santos told you Sikorsky was on the moon and you didn’t tell me,” Parker snarled. “Go. Find him now.”
Rhodes took a breath to defend himself, then he plunged the skewer into Damien’s gut, leaving it hanging there as he stalked out of the room. Damien screamed in pain, his body writhing. Parker pulled the skewer out, but did nothing for the wound.
“Tell your wife to cooperate, or she’ll watch you die,” Parker warned.
“How can you be sure she understands either of us?” Damien challenged. They glared at each other, then Damien looked past him. “Janiya…”
The sound of his voice trailed off, but then she felt him in her head. The Confluence will help you connect. Take it and go. Save yourself.
Janiya’s hands hurt. She couldn’t telekinetically move the stone from his pocket, and with her hands broken, it would be difficult to take it. He’d brought it for her, so she had to try. The moment she touched it, the restraints on her body vanished and she was on the floor next to the chair.
Please, I have to go farther than this. I have to!
“It’s working,” Parker exclaimed. “Whatever you did, it’s working!”
Janiya felt a familiar warmth. She saw a golden light, and she knew she’d reached the home of the Panoptica. Someone was waiting for her! She scrambled toward the portal, but Parker touched it first, and the window snapped closed.
“No!” Janiya cried, waving her hand through the space that should have led to her freedom.
Parker sat on the floor next to her, the case of Hanyu ore in his lap.
“That’s progress, my dear. I knew you could do it,” Parker encouraged.
Spirit was nervous, just like it had been in Boone, making Sky feel queasy as it prowled through her mind. It had given her a strange dream without throttling her, but seeing future glimpse out of context was not a gift. She wanted to be rid of her Spirit. Maybe if she continued Coral’s research, she could find a way to do that.
Sky could almost feel Coral’s breath on her skin as she entered her gravitation equations into Nolwazi. Maybe it was Sikorsky’s breath. Or the myriad of other ex-lovers who seemed to parade through her life since she boarded Oriana. She remembered Brandon in the city of Boone showing her how the avalan clay focused the artificial gravity into a beam. She remembered him giving her a grav-gun while they were in bed. The power source was missing now, and the avalan inside was scraped and misshapen. At least she had one part of her life back from Parker.
“You’re telling me there’s math to describe where my finger went?” Sikorsky asked, sliding his chair closer to hers, still trembling as he cradled his arm. She’d numbed him from the shoulder down just to keep him upright. The ward room was like a mesh of conference area and monitoring controls. It was comparable to the galley in size, but had only two chairs, both of which moved on tracks.
“There’s math to describe how grav-sources work. It doesn’t say anything about how humans ride those waves,” Sky replied, sliding her hand up his thigh. Unlike Danny and Chase, he had no trouble mixing business and pleasure. His touch helped her think, but she retracted her hand when Saskia and Amanda came into the ward room.
“Save a slice of that for Tray,” Sky said, pointing to the cake Amanda carried.
“Why? Have you given up cooking ever again?” Amanda asked, setting her drink on the table and licking the cake.
“Is it gone?” Sky asked. Amanda stuffed the entire piece into her mouth. Sky sighed and rested her head in her hands.
“Did you try to reach Janiya again?” Sikorsky asked.
“No luck,” Amanda said, spraying cake crumbs. She covered her mouth, swallowed half of what was in it, then spoke again. “I don’t think Parker’s going to play with Damien Coro in the building.”
“On the contrary. I think he’ll play harder. Janiya may have come here to escape Damien, but I don’t think she could bear to watch him suffer Parker’s torture. She’ll do anything she can to help,” Sikorsky said.
“But
can she help?” Saskia asked. “If she doesn’t know how you got the stone to work, she can’t tell him anything.”
“She can’t tell him anyway. Unless he understands Moonspeak,” Sikorsky said.
“She’s using Moonspeak?” Amanda asked, rubbing her lips.
“Exclusively,” Sikorsky nodded.
“That’s not a good sign,” Sky said.
“Maybe she was worried about the conversation being recorded?” Saskia suggested.
“Maybe,” Sikorsky said. “I couldn’t believe I understood her. She didn’t have much to say.”
“You’re not exactly a friendly face,” Amanda muttered.
Sikorsky shot her a sneer. “That cake has carrots in it.”
Amanda’s face fell. “You poisoned the cake?”
“Vlad, why would you say that?” Sky groaned, opening her arms to hug Amanda. Amanda turned on her heels and stalked out of the ward room. Sky resisted the urge to smack Sikorsky’s injured arm, but she gave his thigh a hearty swat. He flinched, breaking into a sweat. The pain was still getting to him.
“Is that Tray?” Saskia asked, stepping around Sky and looking at one of the higher-tier consoles.
“Hawk,” Sky said, glancing up at the little blue dot. “I’ve been tracking him on his date. Making sure he doesn’t disappear.”
“How’s he doing?” Saskia asked.
“Not bad,” Sky said, touching the blip with her finger. “They made it to the 3, which means his date finally relaxed. He’s sending me pictures of tractors. I think he’s in love.”
“Call him back,” Saskia ordered. “As soon as Danny and Tray get back from the hospital, we have to rescue the Coros.”
Sikorsky scoffed and raised his missing finger. “You and what army?”
“You,” Saskia said. “This is why you wanted to come to Terrana.”
“I can’t teleport back into the room,” Sikorsky said. “I haven’t seen any opportunity to do so. It’s more likely she’ll be able to teleport out. We just need your girl to connect when Parker puts the gravity on.”
The Confluence: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 6) Page 17
