Hot Zone

by Cindy Dees

  Rustam lifted Artemesia aboard, her presence overwhelming everything and everyone aboard the ship, including him. The woman was a force of nature. She could probably give Rustam as good as she got from him.

  Tessa sighed. Yes, she’d been an idiot to think he’d actually fallen for her. She’d been convenient. A tool to be used and discarded when it wasn’t needed anymore.

  Artemesia’s crew hauled up the anchor and hoisted the sails with fascinating efficiency. In a few minutes, their ship was under way again. Tessa frowned as she noticed that their vessel was passing all the other nearby ships, which were still at anchor.

  Relenting on her vow never to speak to Rustam again, she sidled up beside him and murmured, “What’s going on? Why are we moving and the others holding their positions?”

  “Because the queen brought such valuable tidings to the emperor, his generals are giving her the honor of leading the fleet.”

  Tessa frowned. “Isn’t that the most dangerous position?”

  “Aye.”

  “So they’re rewarding her by putting her in harm’s way? That makes no sense.”

  Rustam glanced down at Tessa wryly. “From her perspective, she has the most chance to gain glory by leading the fleet. From the generals’ perspective, maybe they remove a pesky thorn in all of their sides if she happens to drown gloriously.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Any luck finding your map?”

  “Not yet. And I’ve been over most of the ship.”

  Rustam silently held his hand out to her, hiding the move by angling his body closer and using a fold of his toga to disguise his hand.

  She really didn’t want to touch him, lest she fall under his spell again. But did she have any choice? She had to find the disk. Exhaling hard, she took his hand.

  Power flowed over her and through her, more intoxicating than ever. It was infused with his desire for her, the explosive lust between them dancing through her like chain lightning.

  “Do you have this effect on all the girls?” she ground out between clenched teeth.

  He laughed quietly. “I only care for how I affect you.”

  She scowled up at him. Dammit, he was doing it again—distracting her from the job at hand! The fragment. Where was it? She focused her mind and received a reading on it so piercingly sharp and close it stabbed the insides of her eyelids like ice picks. Jolted by the discomfort, her eyes flew open. Directly in front of her. At eye level. No more than a few feet away.

  “Anything?” Rustam muttered.

  She dropped his hand. “It’s close, but we already knew that. I’m not even sure it’s on this ship, at this point.”

  Meanwhile, her gaze flitted back and forth in front of her. The sides of the ship swooped together into a sharp, ironclad prow that curved up into a sharp point like an eagle’s talon. Mounted just behind that claw was a not-quite-life-size carving of a woman, leaning forward as if into a strong wind. It appeared to be done in some sort of hardwood, inlaid with metal and semiprecious stones. Her robes flowed back behind her, and her face showed determination. Her left hand pointed forward as if she were gesturing troops into battle. Her right hand held a spear at the ready.

  The spear.

  Its tip was a wedge of bronze…with a series of bumps across its surface. Tessa squinted to make out the marks more clearly. That was the constellation Virgo.

  Elation leaped in her chest.

  She’d done it! She’d found the Karanovo fragment!

  How she was going to climb out onto that narrow, precarious tongue of wood and get the damned thing, she had no idea. But one step at a time. It was a huge milestone to have even found it.

  Another series of horn blasts drifted across the water, and ships all around them began to weigh anchor and hoist sails. The front edge of the fleet appeared. But, with the forward momentum it had, Artemesia’s ship passed most of the others before they got under way.

  Now that Tessa knew where the bronze piece was, she probably shouldn’t stand here staring at it until Rustam took notice of what she was doing. She wandered aft to watch the progress of the fleet. She was relieved when he didn’t follow her but rather chose to stay up front and gaze out across the open water before them.

  The fleet at their back was an impressive sight. As far as she could see, ships blanketed the sea. Hundreds, even thousands, of them. Ancient histories reported that Xerxes had fifteen thousand ships. It was possible his army numbered three hundred thousand or more, as Rustam said it did.

  A sailor, perched high in the rigging overhead, shouted all of a sudden. The Athenian fleet had been sighted.

  Artemesia’s voice rang out from behind Tessa. “Prepare for battle! Wake the oarsmen and arm yourselves! We fight for the glory of Persia!”

  Tessa’s heart leaped into her throat. How in the world was she going to climb out onto the prow of the ship and get that disk in the middle of the greatest naval battle of ancient times? What if the ship sank? Then what was she supposed to do, assuming she didn’t drown or get run over by another ship in the process?

  As soon as crewmen on the ships behind them sighted the Athenian fleet, the race was on. Every captain wanted to be the first to engage the enemy, apparently. Bigger ships gradually gained on Artemesia’s low-slung vessel.

  Tessa had spoken with the captain during the night about how its lower center of gravity made it more stable on the open sea or in a storm than the other Persian ships and more nimble to maneuver. However, what it gave up in momentum and surface area of sails was quickly becoming apparent as the other Persian ships bore down on them.

  She gazed ahead anxiously. There it was. The first of several channel islands that angled in toward shore, creating a natural—and deadly—funnel for the Persian fleet.

  Tessa turned to speak urgently to the captain and was startled to find herself facing Artemesia.

  “Speak,” the queen commanded when Tessa drew up short.

  “See that island over there?” Tessa pointed to the one she’d been looking at. “It angles toward shore, and this strait gets narrower and narrower ahead. The fleet behind us is going form a massive logjam—” She broke off. “Do you know that term? When logs float down a river and get smashed together—”

  Artemesia waved a hand, cutting her off, her assessing gaze already taking in the bigger ships bearing down upon them. She grasped the problem in an instant and quickly ordered, “All sails aloft. Now! Full speed ahead on the oars!”

  The faint rhythmic sound drifting up from below picked up speed and urgency, and Tessa abruptly realized what it was. A drum, being used to coordinate the strokes of the rowers.

  Artemesia’s ship shot forward. Sure enough, the straits narrowed on either side of them, the shores rocky and steep. Ahh, the Athenians had chosen their trap well. Unfortunately, the other Persian captains also seemed to recognize the danger, and an all-out race for a tiny patch of open water ahead broke out. As the bigger ships also hoisted full sails and their oars stroked the water faster and faster, the ground Artemesia had gained was eaten up. Inevitably, the larger vessels again bore down on them.

  The queen’s captain shouted to the pair of approaching vessels to back off, but apparently, they were having none of it. It was every man for himself out here. Whoever got to the neck of the strait first would sail through. Everyone else would chance being crushed.

  The ships on either side of them pulled even, then slightly ahead. Tessa winced. They weren’t going to make it. Turbulent water before them marked the neck of the strait. She glanced in rising panic at Rustam, whose face was grim with understanding that they were in serious trouble.

  “Do something!” she cried to him.

  “I can’t move an entire ship this size. Not without my gear. I need my crystals or something of equal power to focus my energy on.”

  Her cuff. It had a time-travel crystal in it. Was that what he was talking about?

  The ship on their right banged into them, causing their vessel to ro
ck violently. Tessa was thrown off her feet. Rustam knelt quickly beside her. “Can you swim?” he bit out.

  “Yes. You?”

  “Yes. When we go in the water, I’ll try to stay with you. But if we get separated, try to find something to hang on to, to keep you afloat. This water is deep and cold and you’ll tire fast. Head for the Greek shore if you can.”

  They were in serious trouble if he was talking about what to do when they sank. She said urgently, “I have one calibrated quartz crystal. Is that enough?”

  He shook his head and muttered under his breath, “With only one crystal, I’d need a focus object—a substance hardened to withstand unleashed star-navigator energy, and the tearing forces of displacing and reforming.”

  The Karanovo fragment. Would it work?

  She murmured, “There may be a focus object on this ship.”

  Rustam’s eyes widened in surprise. “Impossible!” he exclaimed.

  She climbed to her feet, staggering as the ship to the left jostled them. She grabbed his hand and dragged him forward, dodging frantic sailors trying to pad the sides of their vessel with blankets and spare sails. “There!” She pointed at the figurehead. “Her spear tip.”

  Rustam stared where she indicated. His jaw dropped. “The Karanovo—” He broke off abruptly. “It might work. Give me your crystal.”

  They were banged hard from both sides this time as the rocky shores funneled the front rank of the Persian fleet mercilessly together. The ship’s timbers groaned, punctuated by ominous cracking noises, as it was slowly crushed between two larger vessels. Behind them, the captain screamed for the crew to prepare to abandon ship.

  Tessa tore her belt pouch open and grabbed her arm cuff, thrusting it into his hands.

  “Touch me,” Rustam yelled over the grinding of wood on wood. “Give me all your power!”

  She grasped him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist and hanging on for all she was worth as the ship began to buckle around them.

  Twenty-One

  Rustam’s energy surged so violently that she could scarcely hang on as it burst out of him. An answering explosion of power from somewhere deep within her stunned her. She felt as if her body were tearing apart, into millions and millions of individual cells connected only loosely by a net of violet energy that grew and grew. The two storms merged, and an indigo tornado built around them, whirling faster and faster as it swelled to encompass the entire ship.

  And then, with a great mental gathering of strength, she felt Rustam wrap his mind around the entire vortex and form it into a massive lightning bolt of power that he flung, in its entirety, at the Karanovo fragment.

  The ship’s deck heaved beneath Tessa’s feet as the vessel lifted partially out of the water until its hull seemed to barely skim the surface of the sea. They shot forward like a high-powered motorboat, surging out of the deadly vise created by the other ships, with a grinding, screeching noise of wood scraping wood. And then they were free, shooting forward at twice the speed of the rest of the fleet.

  How long they maintained that breakneck pace, she had no idea. Time ceased to have any meaning as raw power surged from her and through her, passing into and through Rustam. It was exhilarating. Beyond exhilarating.

  It was the same feeling she’d experienced when the two of them made love and leaped to that dark place full of stars, but more. So much more. She’d never felt anything like this.

  This must be what it was like to be a star navigator. And now that she’d experienced it, she instinctively knew that she would be able to call it forth again. She was changed. More alive than she’d ever been before. And she loved it.

  She became vaguely aware of something ahead of them, blocking the neck of the strait. More ships. But not moving, not the Persian fleet. Waiting in a solid mass. The Athenian armada.

  If they didn’t slow down, Artemesia’s ship was going to slam into that line of vessels like a battering ram.

  “Rustam,” Tessa urgently called aloud, and sent mentally. “Stop!”

  His eyes fluttered open, and he saw the obstacle ahead. All of a sudden, their ship slowed, settling heavily into the water, rocking hard over its own bow wave. Rustam sagged in her arms, supporting himself heavily against the ship’s rail before him.

  “You okay?” she murmured.

  “I’ll live. I haven’t drained myself like that since my first jump.”

  She turned to glance behind them. The Persian fleet was well to the rear now in complete chaos as the first rank of ships jammed the strait in a mass of broken wood, tangled canvas and tilting masts, and the rest of the fleet bore down helplessly upon them. It was not a pretty sight. Here and there, the largest vessels were pushing through and pressing forward, but they were only a small fraction of the overall fleet.

  “Uh, my lady queen? We have a problem.”

  That was the ship’s captain. Tessa whirled to face where he was pointing. A group of Greek vessels had split away from the others and was approaching fast.

  It was too late to run. Their flanks were unprotected. Various military options flew through Tessa’s mind, and she discarded each with lightning speed. In an instant, only one truth remained. The best defense was always a good offense.

  As she opened her mouth to suggest an attack, Artemesia ordered decisively, “Full speed ahead on the oars. Deploy the battering ram. Let us show these Greeks what we think of their puny navy.”

  The queen’s crew sprang into action, ferocious grins on their faces. Bloodthirsty bunch. But then, Tessa expected no less of any sailors who served this formidable woman, who was such a lioness herself.

  The Athenian ships arrayed themselves in a line before the Persian one, daring it to come and get them.

  Artemesia’s captain bellowed, “Which target, my lady?”

  Tessa glanced at the choices. She would choose the big one in the middle. It appeared as if orders were being shouted from that vessel to the others. Cut the head off the beast and maybe its limbs would cease to function effectively.

  Beside her, Artemesia hissed, and Tessa looked over at her. The queen was just pulling a spyglass from her eye. “The middle ship,” she snarled.

  Blindly, Artemesia held the spyglass out, all but punching Tessa in the gut with it. Tessa snatched the piece before it could drop to the deck, then, curious, put it to her eye and focused on the middle ship ahead.

  Ahh. No wonder Artemesia was so furious. The Greek general Hippoclides stood wide-legged and arrogant on the deck. The queen’s lover had come out to destroy her.

  Red fury radiated off of Artemesia, infecting the rest of the crew within moments. Tessa was stunned. Was Artemesia a potential star navigator, too? She had the kind of personal energy field that might easily be an indicator. But there was no more time to wonder about it as the enemy ship’s oars came out and the two vessels began to charge one another.

  It suddenly dawned on Tessa that Rustam was still leaning heavily on the front rail. He would be thrown out of their vessel when the two collided! Racing forward as the Greek craft loomed, she threw an arm around him.

  When she looked down at the water, where he was staring, she saw a wooden flap open just below their feet. Two massive pointed logs armored with metal of some kind emerged. Those must be the battering rams. An interesting innovation. Her studies of military history indicated that ancient sailors merely rammed their ships into one another, and the strongest vessel generally sailed away intact while the other sank. Artemesia, in her zeal to design a better ship, must have come up with this idea of an actual battering ram. Even if those logs shattered on impact, the vessel would still be seaworthy. Clever.

  Rustam shifted beside her, pulling her attention back to the battle at hand.

  “C’mon, you’ve got to move,” she insisted. “We’re about to ram the Greek ship and you’ll get tossed overboard. You’ll never guess who’s commanding it.”

  Rustam didn’t answer. He let her wedge herself under his left arm and steer hi
m aft, staggering under his weight until she sat him between the same amphoras of oil she’d slept near last night.

  “Hang on,” she murmured. “We should slam into the Greeks soon.”

  Rustam nodded wearily. As she began to stand up, a strange thing happened. All of a sudden, he threw his head up, nostrils flaring sharply. “Who’s in command of that vessel?” he demanded.

  Surprised, she replied, “Hippoclides. Artemesia’s lover.”

  “The Greek gen—of course.” Rustam swore under his breath in a tongue she’d never heard before, but there was no doubt it was cursing.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked quickly.

  “He’s one of us.”

  Tessa frowned. “Come again?”

  “He’s exactly like me.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

  He scowled up at her. “I can feel his aura from here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was Kentar himself who has possessed Hippoclides’s body.”

  “Who’s Kentar?”

  “The Centaurian Primus. My supreme commander.”

  “What in the world would he be doing here?”

  “Coming to check up on me, most likely.”

  “But I thought you crashed here by accident—”

  The sentence was interrupted by the captain shouting, “Brace for impact!”

  If the ships had looked small to Tessa before, the massive crash as they collided moments later belied the impression. The entire deck heaved and shuddered beneath her, and the sound of cracking, buckling wood was horrendous. Their vessel lurched backward, recoiling from the impact. Coils of hemp line, barrels, spare oars and men rolled over the deck in utter chaos. But then a triumphant shout went up overhead. Tessa looked skyward and saw a sailor tied to the mast shaking his fist gleefully at the Greeks.

  She risked a glance forward. Directly in front of them, the Greek ship’s prow was split open like a log neatly driven apart by a wedge. A wedge…Ohmigosh, the figurehead!

  Tessa jumped up, racing forward to check on the statue’s condition. What if her spear had broken off in the impact?