Vicious Circle

by Elle E. Ire

  Kila curled into the crook of my shoulder, head against my breast. “I could tell.” She laughed. Then, more seriously, “Thank you.”

  I stroked her long hair. “I’d like to return the favor, but….” Sleep was already claiming me, and I could barely complete a thought, much less a sentence. Normally I had more endurance, but the stress and worry of recent days wore away my stamina, and additional strain would soon follow, no doubt. Besides, I sensed the exertions had tired Kila as well. She sounded pleased but weary.

  “Rest, Cor.” I heard the smile in her voice. “I’m more of a morning person, anyway.”

  I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of what the morning might bring.

  In my nightmares, I stood upon the altar in the Guild temple, my clothing and then my flesh removed in strips from my body while masters and apprentices took turns peeling away each piece.

  When I woke, shivering in my cold sweat, I wrapped my arms around myself to prevent my shaking from awakening Kila. My teeth clenched upon my lower lip to stifle the sobs distending my throat.

  Sex might drain energy, but it created it as well. While the two women wore themselves out with pointless fucking, the entity sapped bursts of strength from them, flowing between them freely as their thoughts focused elsewhere.

  It took more power from Cor, the stronger of the two, but could not remain within her. Once fully rested, her Will would thrust the weakened ephem from her body.

  No. Better to stick with the girl. She had much less sense of self, much less confidence in her worth.

  An opportunity would present itself. The ephem was drawing closer to something. It could sense it, a tremendous source of power, and they were approaching it fast. If the entity could tap into that source, nothing would be able to resist its influence.

  Chapter 21

  KILA AND I didn’t see much of Jaren over the next half a day. At some point, he tapped on the sleeping compartment hatch, requesting entry, and Kila groggily waved him inside. I managed to yank the covers over our naked bodies before he crossed the threshold, and didn’t check to see if he blushed before crawling into his own bunk.

  After that, though, it became all business. A half day out from Sardonen, I disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled my one remaining laser pistol, then charged it. I found another and a thigh holster among Yesenia’s things that could be adjusted to fit me and cleaned that gun as well. I also discovered a second ripper and spaced it, along with several fragmentation grenades and a vial of extended time-release poison, all banned by the Guild.

  Kila scanned my heavily armed figure from top to bottom, a scowl marring her beauty. “You enjoy confrontation.”

  The statement caught me off guard. I stopped retightening the thigh holster, holding both ends of the leather in my hands, and looked at her.

  “Enjoy isn’t the right word, but I won’t deny it gets my blood pumping.”

  Her frown deepened.

  “Look,” I said, pushing the piece of metal through the hole and releasing the holster to lie tight against my leg, “people can’t always fight for themselves. They don’t have the strength, the training, the aptitude. If something I’m good at, something that, well, yes, excites me, happens to help others, then….” I shrugged.

  “Then it might as well be you?” Her tone sounded bitter.

  “Might as well.” I took a seat. Time to change tactics. “What is it about me that attracts you?”

  She blinked. “Well, you’re— You’re—”

  “Dangerous? Exciting?” I leaned against the backrest.

  Kila blushed. Her voice grew soft. “You’re a lot more than that.”

  “But that’s part of the appeal, my nature. It didn’t repulse you, though by all the teachings of your religion, it should have.”

  She paced the length of the small compartment. “And now that they want you back, you’ll return to it, permanently, despite all they’ve done to you?”

  Ah, the heart of the conflict. I stood and captured her hands in mine, made her stop and face me. “They’ve done a lot for me. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I meet with the Guild, but I know what I am. If this works out, Jaren will stay in the temple.”

  Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  “I intend to stay with you,” I told her. At least for as long as I was able. “If that is with Jaren, with the Guild, so be it. If not….” I spread my hands in a gesture of surrender to her.

  She wrapped me in her embrace, and we remained that way until the ship chimed its final approach to the desert world.

  Minutes before arrival, I programmed the onboard computer to run us dark the minute we dropped out of Weiss-space. Then I leaned back in the pilot’s chair to wait. Kila and Jaren strapped themselves into their seats in the central section of the shuttle.

  A subtle tremor rippled through the Protector, and the view outside the forward screen went from what looked like white fuzz to the usual star field. The white-yellow glare of Sardonen almost blinded me before I turned away and polarized the screen. It had been too long since I’d seen Sardonen’s surface from space.

  Proximity alarms sounded, and I slammed my palm over the control to shut them off. I didn’t want to risk a scan someone might detect, so I counted with my own eyes. At least five vessels in orbit. Three obvious warships. I had to assume those hunted us.

  They couldn’t have gotten here faster from Lissex. These had to be new ships, contacted by their allies to attempt interception, all different designs from different worlds, all spaced nicely apart with lots of emptiness between them. Antipathy and competition worked in our favor. Operating in concert, they could have boxed us in. Three craft working independently would be hard-pressed to catch us.

  Wide spacing also meant lots of gaps in their scan radius. At least the closest one should have registered our arrival in the same way the Protector’s alarms went off, but it might not have had time to observe details before I angled us away. I used the curvature of Sardonen to block the rest of their signals and dropped us into the atmosphere on the far side of the planet.

  Prolonged shuttle operation in atmosphere violated a number of safety regulations, but at the moment, I didn’t care. The plan was to ignore flight control at Weathered Palms and put us down next to the Guild stronghold. After all, once Jaren established himself in the temple, it was unlikely our presence would remain a secret anymore.

  So much for planning.

  A strong vibration in the frame shuddered through the Protector. More alarms and a high-pitched whine from the engine compartment followed. The shaking made activating anything difficult. My hands kept missing the controls, but after two tries, I brought up internal and external diagnostics and expounded a string of curses that would have impressed a slaver.

  I opened shipboard comms. “Pull those straps tight! We’re making a forced landing.” Which translated to, “We’re going to crash, and I hope we live through it.”

  “Are we under attack?” came Jaren’s voice.

  I shook my head once, before I remembered he couldn’t see me. “Cascade failure from the damage we got during our Lissex escape. One engine gone, repulsors offline, landing gear nonfunctional. And unless you can heal metal the way you do people, I need you to shut up so I can concentrate.” I heard the click as the channel closed.

  I’m an assassin, not a fucking daredevil pilot.

  “Today,” Micah would have said, “you are both.”

  My stomach lurched as one of the compensators failed and the shuttle took a nosedive. I hit the sequence to switch primary systems to manual. The computer couldn’t handle the delicate and frequent adjustments necessary to get us down safely. Quite frankly, neither could I, but if I was going to die today, I wanted to control my destiny.

  And Kila and Jaren’s as well, a little voice reminded me. I told it to shut up too.

  The powerful desert winds I remembered all too well buffeted the little craft, knocking me around in my seat and raising bruises
despite the padding. I shot a quick look at our trajectory and the location of the Guild hideaway. We were off target by kilometers, and I fought to keep us gliding for as long as possible in the right direction.

  Sensors registered fire in our second engine, followed by more alarms. Smoke poured through the ventilation system, and I coughed while straining to see through the forward screen.

  No more time. If I didn’t get us on the ground soon, the shuttle would explode with all of us aboard. I picked a flat spot between two large dunes and said a quick prayer to whatever gods the Believers worshipped that Jaren would be able to repair any physical damage our bodies sustained. Of course, if Jaren himself were injured or killed that fallback would vanish.

  I tried to keep us flat and even, hoping to skim us in over the soft sand, but at the last moment, a gust of wind caught us. I overcompensated, and we slammed nose-first into the desert floor. The impact threw me forward with so much force one of my restraints tore free and my head made contact with the console.

  WORST THING about dreams or unconsciousness: they always brought up things best left forgotten.

  “This time, I win.” Yesenia’s body hovered over mine, her weight pressing my spine against the stone floor of the Guild hall, her stinging sweat dripping into my eyes.

  We’d fought long and hard this session, the apprentices and Micah looking on while we demonstrated proper hand-to-hand combat techniques. Only it never amounted to a mere demonstration when Micah paired me against Yesenia. With her, it always felt personal.

  Both of us bore the marks of a true fight; the back of my head throbbed where I’d made contact with the stone, and my right knee ached from a painful kick and near dislocation.

  Yesenia had one blackened eye, its lid swollen and holding it closed so she glared at me like an angry cyclops. I’d split her lip with a right cross, and the red stained her front teeth. Her raspy breath belied several broken ribs.

  Fighting Yesenia was pointless. She had skills, but I always defeated her. Her shorter stature gave her less reach, and though she moved fast, I had the greater agility.

  Sometimes I wondered if Micah got off on watching us battle each other. One thing I knew for certain.

  She hadn’t won.

  I reached up, grabbed a fistful of her auburn hair and yanked it out by the roots, then rolled us both while she screamed. I jammed a finger into her good eye, not deep enough to blind her—I had some restraint, even with Yesenia—and broke away from her twisting form.

  Both were dirty moves, without honor, but she wouldn’t have hesitated to use them on me, and I’d grown tired of these games.

  This was the third time this week I’d fought her. The third time I’d take her down. Maybe she initiated these bouts, asked Micah to assign us together. She tripped me in the corridors, intentionally bumped my arm at the dining table, muttered curses and threats just loud enough for me to hear. We were supposed to be comrades, but she never missed an opportunity to antagonize me. And I never, ever rose to her bait.

  Here, all bets were off.

  I raised my hand, the heel of it poised to strike a knockout thrust to her jaw, when Micah called a halt to the exercise.

  Despite her obvious position of defeat, I could see in her expression Yesenia wanted the match to continue. Her glare burned with a hatred I did not understand at the time—a desire to do more than win. I saw lethal anger there.

  Micah gathered the viewing apprentices into a cluster to expound upon the successful and unsuccessful choices we made in the session. Our custom dictated the winner assist the loser to her feet, and warily I extended my hand to my opponent.

  Yesenia spat on my fingers, bloody drool running over the tips. One arm clutched around her midsection, she righted herself and moved to the corridor archway. Over his shoulder, Micah watched her go. Then he excused himself and followed. At the time, I assumed he planned to provide medical assistance.

  Yesenia shot me a look of victory. “I still win.” Her words garbled around a broken tooth, but I heard them.

  I didn’t understand them until much later.

  Maybe I’d moved on from the pain Micah had caused me, but if she’d survived, Yesenia would need to be dealt with, sooner or later.

  WHEN I came to, the cabin was silent except for the occasional pop and sizzle of a circuit in the control panel. I groaned, and the sound echoed in the confined space. Or maybe my ears weren’t working right. Not sure. Bigger things to worry about. No alarms sounded, though I didn’t take that as a positive sign. They’d likely been damaged in the crash. Flashing red lights from the console glowed eerily through the thickening smoke.

  I raised my cheek off the controls and tried to look out the forward viewport, but sand covered it from bottom to top. A surge of panic set my heart racing. Living in the Guild catacombs, amidst frequent earthquakes, I had repeated nightmares of live burial. Now I got to experience it awake. I had no idea how deep we might have driven before our momentum ceased. We could be under tons of packed sand, hardened by the heat of the shuttle’s exterior.

  I attempted a couple of deep breaths to calm myself but coughed on the smoke instead. Standing, I held on to the pilot’s chair for support. The room spun, and my head pounded. A tentative touch, and my fingers came away sticky with half-dried blood. Depressing the comm switch brought no response. Only static erupted from the speakers.

  Fear gripped me. I scrambled for the hatch, a small part of my rational mind noting the upward angle of the deck plates. With a little luck, our tail, including the ramp or at least the overhead escape exit, would be above ground level. I pressed my palm against the opening mechanism, afraid of what I might find of my companions on the other side. I heard a loud grinding. The door slid open about two centimeters and then stopped.

  I slipped my fingers into the crevice and pulled at the opening, muscles straining with the effort. Another set of hands touched mine and I jerked away.

  “Kila?” I called.

  “No. Jaren.”

  He moved lower, and I went higher, and between the two of us, we managed to get the hatch open enough for me to step through. Oddly enough, less smoke filled the seating area. There must have been a direct shaft between the engine compartment and the cockpit channeling the smoke up front. I took a breath of fresher air and surveyed the damage. Anything that hadn’t been tied down or locked in a cabinet lay strewn across the deck plates. Sparks flew from the food-processing unit, threatening to start a second fire in here.

  Kila stared at me, pale and wide-eyed, but I didn’t see any new injuries. She hadn’t unfastened her restraints but remained trembling in her seat. I went to her first and disconnected her safety straps, then pulled her against me for a quick hug of encouragement. Yesenia’s desert gear looked out of place on Kila, but the clothing fit, and the lighter fabrics and camouflage colors would be more practical on Sardonen than Kila’s wardrobe.

  “You’re hurt,” she mumbled against my side where I held her. She pulled away. “Jaren!”

  I waved off her brother with one hand. He seemed to be handling this better than his sister. Maybe it was shock. “No time. There’s a fire somewhere. We need to get out and put some distance between us and this shuttle, fast. Besides, if one of the orbiting ships registered the crash, we won’t be hard to track.”

  I rummaged through a pile of survival gear that had fallen from a bin and removed two packs. “Shove everything you can in these.” Once they got moving, I went to the entry ramp and tried to open it. The mechanism inside the door whirred and screeched, and the ramp lowered a centimeter, letting in a small trickle of sand, then stopped. Just as well if we were buried. I turned to my companions, who each wore one of the packs. “Breathers,” I ordered, pointing to a sealed compartment. “There should be two. I registered a pretty bad dust storm as we came in. Might still be going on.”

  “What about you?” Jaren asked, fitting the oxygen mask over nose and mouth and sealing the goggles to cover his eyes.

/>   I tied a handkerchief over my face and put on Yesenia’s sunglasses. “These will have to do. The Protector is a two-person vessel, not stocked for three.” I grabbed the access bar to the overhead escape hatch, took a deep breath, and pulled.

  The seal released and the square metal door swung downward. Sand poured on top of my head and formed a sizable mound at my feet, but I could see sky through the opening. I shook the granules from my hair and eyes and stared up. Darkening sky. Good and bad. Cooler temperatures but more predators.

  A small explosion sounded from beneath us, and a rumble shook the deck under our feet. We exchanged looks, and then I hauled Kila to the pull-down ladder and shoved her upward, both hands on her ass. “As soon as you’re out, get clear. If there’s a rock outcropping, get behind it!” I shouted after her, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time I got to grab her there. I turned to Jaren. “You next.”

  He hesitated and opened his mouth to argue but snapped it shut at my look.

  “This is all for nothing if you die here.”

  He started up the ladder, and I fell in behind him. “That’s what I wanted,” I heard him mutter when he reached the top.

  “You still want it?”

  When he turned to look down, his expression through the transparent breather mask showed genuine surprise. “No, not at all.”

  I’d given him hope he might live his life without starting an interstellar war, and my determination to get us through this increased tenfold. “Good. I’d hate to think—” A wave of dizziness caught me off guard, and I almost lost my grip on the rung. I clung to it one-handed, the other going to my forehead while the world spun around me. Nausea and an overwhelming desire to sleep followed close on the vertigo’s heels.

  “Cor!” Jaren reached down and caught the shoulder of my jacket, then drew me upward.

  The shuttle rocked with another minor explosion, one of the fuel tanks most likely, and a deck plate burst from the floor. Steam poured out of the hole, and I swung myself to the opposite side of the ladder to avoid having the flesh melted from my body.