Defender of the Empire 2: Facades Page 8
“How rude. Isn’t this the same crew you saved back on the edge of the N’avé system?” M. Kit asked.
It is, but me and the guys also stole their cargo just as their employers were coming to pick it up. That was kind of rude in and of itself. At least to their way of thinking.
“You are not saying that you regret saving Jason, are you?” M. Kit asked in a horrified tone.
Of course not. They could have avoided the entire situation if they hadn’t kidnapped my friend. The short of it is, they are not happy to see me, I thought to her. I really wasn’t bothered by that fact, because the feeling was mutual.
Ace followed Talis. (I know there is more to that name, but honestly? It’s much too long and I feel like it’s some sort of title or something. He kidnapped my friend and his people were attacking my homeworld. I wasn’t about to give him any honors.) After walking the breadth of the ship, we arrived at the bridge. Upon entering, I was nailed to the door behind me by hostile yellow glares. Without thinking, I pointed at Ace and said “Blame him. He is the reason why I am on this ship.” Ace glanced at me over his shoulder, his brow raised.
“She won’t be here long, lads,” Talis said, taking what I assumed was the captain’s chair. Ace gestured for me to lean against the wall, out of the way. He stood next to me with his arms crossed. I watched the Telmicks at work. It was like watching any bridge crew, I guess. I played a game with M. Kit, trying to guess what each console was for. She was also repeatedly trying to contact the Hail Mary. She wasn’t having any luck. Whatever signal Ace had used on the LFA appeared to still be in effect.
After the game, I focused my attention out the forward view screen. The chaos of hyperspace swirled brilliantly beyond. It captivated me and let my mind drift for a moment.
“Where are we going?” I whispered to Ace. The only reply I got was a smile. Rolling my eyes, I looked down at the cuffs holding my wrists. Any chance you could make me strong enough to break free of these? Or could you hack into them and make them release? I silently asked M. Kit.
“Rylynn, I’m a Medi-Comp, not an engineer. I could make you stronger, but only to your body’s maximum that it could obtain naturally. Sadly, that would not be enough to break the magnetic pull of the cuffs. As to the magnetic pull itself… well, it is not a part of you.”
So no, I concluded.
“Sorry.”
I mentally shrugged. I’ll just have to keep my eyes open for an opportunity to present itself.
So I waited, coming up with potential plans while I faced forward. Surprisingly, or maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, we arrived next to the sole moon orbiting Colony Lenti. My homeworld was visible just past the cratered surface.
“We are hidden by the moon and the distorter field is online. The Legion starship has made no move that it is aware of us,” one of the Telmicks said.
“Distorter?” I found myself asking.
Leaning toward me, Ace murmured, “It serves as an invisibility cloak. But it is just a signal that fools computers. We could still be seen.”
“That’s why we are behind the moon.”
Ace nodded as Talis stood up. “Saffa’tauta, you have command till I return. Kifen’alusa, you are with me.” The heavily—but not as heavily as Talis—tattooed Telmick standing behind and to the right of Talis’s chair nodded.
“Aye Talklen,” another Telmick, Kifen I’m guessing, said, standing up from his spot near the front of the bridge.
Talis strode to the door beside me. “Come,” he commanded to Ace, and thus me. We followed him, with Kifen behind us, back the way we had come.
I leaned toward Ace, since he seemed to understand more of the Telmick culture than I did, and asked, “What does that mean, Talklen?”
“From what I understand, it literally means ‘spearhead’. It’s a title for a clan leader.”
Before I could ask more, I was doing everything I could to keep from falling into Ace. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed not to bowl him over… much. “Sorry,” I muttered instead, before turning to glare at Kifen.
The lightly tattooed Telmick didn’t look apologetic in the least. “Walking does not require questions,” I was told. And thus my entertainment for the walk back to the shuttle bay was taken away. Yes, I did say we were on our way back to the shuttle bay. I was wondering why we had even left it, since we were coming right back to it after we arrived. We approached a Telmick shuttle that was larger than an LFA. Speaking of which, I couldn’t see the LFA Ace had commandeered. Not that Kifen let me have a good look around. I shot him a cross look as we boarded the shuttle. First he denied me learning anything and then he kept me from looking around. I think he was a little touchy.
Soon I was pushed into a seat. Ace strapped me in since I couldn’t do it myself with the cuffs activated, a fact that I was starting to think wouldn’t change anytime in the foreseeable future. Soon after that, we were dropped into space and drifted until our Telmick pilots took control. They steered us toward the planet. A minute or so later we hit the atmosphere. The shuttle bucked wildly and I was so grateful for being strapped in. The cuffs kept me from holding on to anything substantial. Moments later, I breathed a soft sigh of relief as we hit smoother flying. Reentry was always rough, but I wondered if the Telmicks considered it an art form to make it as rough as possible. Maybe it was a rite of passage or something.
Ace conferred with Talis for a few moments before coming back to sit near me. He had just sat down when the shuttle bucked again.
“Shrat!” Kifen cursed. I couldn’t agree more.
I turned to Ace, who had somehow managed to hold himself in his seat. “Why does it seem that everyone’s choice greeting today is shooting?” He didn’t see any reason to respond to that. I cursed in the next breath when the ship shuddered again.
“There go the engines! We’re going down!” Kifen stated the obvious as the shuttle plunged nose first toward solid ground.
“Pull up! Pull up!” Talis ordered. “We can still glide her down.”
Please let us make it. Please let us make it, I started praying as the Telmicks grunted and pulled hard on the steering shifts. With a groan, the shuttle responded and pulled out of its nose dive. But we were still going down, and far too hot. Ace hurriedly strapped himself in. His wide eyes kept glancing out the forward view screen. I don’t know how he could look away. I certainly couldn’t. A green sea grew below and before us. The part of me that was still calm (not a big part, mind) realized we were going to crash into one of Lenti’s vast wild forests.
“Don’t wander too far in the forests, Rylynn,” Aunt Sylvie had told me once. “Get too far in and you might not find your way back out.” That was one of the few things she had said to me that hadn’t been overly comforting. I never did wander too far those few times I did poke around the forest. Looking back at it now, I couldn’t help but think ironically, well, it looks like I am going to go too far in. Hopefully Aunt Sylvie’s warning had been little more than common sense, and a way to keep a young child close to home.
The shuttle hit with a horrible screeching groan. The few lights still on went out, plunging us into near darkness; the only light being the little sunlight that could filter through the dense leaves. Thundering crashes and thuds rattled through the vessel and my ear drums. In the few short moments while there was ominous quiet outside, I could hear the collective whispered prayers and muttered cursing of the other three. I wasn’t sure if my panicked chattering was audible or not.
Suddenly someone started shouting. It took my sound-shocked brain a moment to understand what was being said, but once it did my praying became much more fervent. “Shrat! Shrat! SHRAT!”
Chapter 9 – Beyond Reach
Rylynn
Sometime later—I don’t really know how much later—I woke up. At first, all I was aware of was the faint gray light bathing the thick tree branch and the far wall. The light seemed to come from both the front and the back, which was weird since there wasn’t
a window in the back of the shuttle. I frowned and instantly regretted it. A dull ringing throbbed through my head. It made figuring out why the tree branch was inside the shuttle nigh impossible. I tried very hard not to wince as it continued to drone through my head. Something was obviously not right, and the constant hum was not helping me focus.
“Hold on, Rylynn,” M. Kit said soothingly to me. “Even being strapped in like you are, that didn’t keep you from being beaten up. But since you normally heal pretty fast, this isn’t going to take that long.”
“What happened?” I whispered aloud before remembering I could just think at M. Kit for her to understand. Boy, do I wish that I had remembered that sooner. It would have saved me quite a bit of effort. It’s very sad when whispering two words makes you want to go back to sleep.
“The Telmick shuttle we are in was shot down. We crashed,” she reminded me patiently. My eyes widened as things now made sense. Thankfully, that didn’t make my head ache. She must have already worked her magic.
Thanks, M. Kit, I thought to her.
She buzzed pleasantly before admonishing me, “just don’t do anything too rash and undo all my hard work.”
I grinned, but didn’t promise anything. We were in trouble and I would do what I had to. Being ‘rash’ sometimes had a nice surprise quality to it. I thought it might very well see us through. I turned my head to see if Ace was in the seat next to me. I gulped.
He wasn’t.
From what I could see, the straps he had managed to put on before I lost consciousness were not torn up. They looked as if he had simply unbuckled himself… but where did he go? I glared at my own straps. With my hands cuffed the way they were, I wasn’t able to release myself. I looked toward the cockpit. The tree branch had shattered the forward window. Shards and bark scraps and leaves littered the floor and seats. But I didn’t see either of the Telmicks… though I did note there were dark splatters on the seats and several shards of glass.
Where had everybody gone? And why did they just leave me here… with blood and an open hole in the hull in a forest known to swallow people whole? Had they gone to check the surrounding area and never made it back? Or did they think I was dead? M. Kit, where is everybody?
Before she could answer, we were distracted by deep voices. I held my breath, straining my ears to figure out if they were friend or foe… not that my traveling companions were ‘friends’, but they had some reason to keep me around. The branch trembled and the voices got closer.
“Ses-Ky poriden.”
“Aeyn. Brel’toatalklen ses-KGor vela rod nus,” another said. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though a few words sounded like things I had heard Telmicks say before. What I did understand was that neither voice belonged to Talis or Kifen. By the way the tree was trembling, they were coming. I shook my head. There I was, trussed up with no way out, and two enemies were coming closer. The universe apparently still hated me.
What were my options? I could play dead and pray they didn’t call my bluff. I could start screaming and pray that a predator of some kind would take advantage… and hope it was satisfied with a Telmick sized snack. Or, maybe the three that had left me here would come and help me. I frowned. Yeah, no. I couldn’t risk depending on them. But I really didn’t have many other alternatives. I guess I could have tried the diplomatic route and just talked to my guests, and asked them to get me out of the straps… after all, I was a weak little human. Not a real threat. And perhaps I should offer them tea while I’m at it, I thought darkly. Sometimes one could be too optimistic.
“Or you could be practical and cut yourself free,” M. Kit suggested.
Using what, exactly? I don’t really have anything close at hand… other than that glass fragment in the tree branch which I have no way of reaching, I thought back.
M. Kit sighed. “I guess you hit your head harder than I thought.”
And how is that helping?
“Rylynn, don’t you still have that knife Marius gave you?”
My eyes widened and I started calling myself all kinds of idiotic names for forgetting. Thank the Lord for helpful Medi-Comps, I thought fervently as I maneuvered my left leg up and near where my hands could reach. The straps were tight, but I was able to push my cuffed hands between the straps. From there, I could slide up my pant leg, and I knew relief. The knife was still there. Is Ace going lax? I wondered, but I wasn’t complaining.
Quickly pulling the knife free, I turned it to practical uses, like getting myself free before my guests arrived. What the hell do they make these things out of? I thought anxiously as the time kept slipping away and my knife was taking its sweet time. I had just gotten free of the straps when the climbing duo stuck their tattooed heads around the branch. They didn’t even peek, how stupid was that? If only I had a blaster… I wasn’t about to get rid of my only weapon.
They saw me before I could duck undercover. The predatory gleam in their yellow eyes chilled me. But a predator was hardwired to go after the weak and injured. Even with a knife in my hands I was far from a threat. That didn’t mean that I had to cower like a little mouse.
“Oh wow! Look at you two!” I cheered. “You climbed up the big bad tree to the wrecked shuttle.” I shook my head in admiration. “Amazing.”
The two predatory stares fell as the Telmicks tried to understand what was wrong with me. I guess they were used to people screaming and running or begging for their lives—not cheering them on and talking to them. I continued smiling at them as one turned to his companion and whispered something that I was pretty sure, going by the tone and the looks on their faces, meant something like ‘she’s crazy’. What a lovely idea. To further concern them, I grinned and started doing a little happy dance in my seat. The move allowed me to slip the knife out of sight. Maybe, just maybe, they would deem that I wasn’t a threat, just nuts, and come on in without killing me, and I would be able to practice some moves Marius had shown me. Even better, they would give me a cautionary look before trying to figure out where my companions had got to. Their forgetting me would give me time to figure out how to get out.
Soon enough they were moving to climb in, but I didn’t get to see if any of my half-thought, crazy ideas would work. Two white blasts hit the two of them from behind. Eyes wide in shock they slumped into the cockpit, large circles of blackened flesh smoking on their backs. The smell of burned hair and cooked meat filled the shuttle and I gagged.
“Good job, Rylynn. You had them so confused it was comical,” Ace said as he dropped through the shattered front window into the cockpit from above.
“And where were you?” I asked caustically.
Ace being Ace, my tone didn’t bother him. If anything it amused him. “Outside, obviously. We were scouting the area and getting our bearings. Since you were still unconscious, we decided it would be best to leave you where you were.”
“So you left me strapped in with cuffs on, unconscious, in a wreck that would be a magnet for either the guys who shot us down or animals. Nice,” I grumbled.
Ace flashed his famous grin and replied, “We were nearby. And you are no longer strapped in,” he observed.
“Worried for her own well-being, a girl has got to be resourceful,” I said, nudging a nearby piece of glass. There was no way I was going to let him think I had a knife. It was, after all, the only actual weapon I had at my disposal and he was not going to take it away from me. Definitely not here, in the deep forests of Lenti.
Ace raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Instead, he motioned me toward him. “We have a ways to go to get to civilization, and as you pointed out, this shuttle is a magnet to undesirable visitors,” he said with a graceful gesture, before pulling one of the bodies into the shuttle so one didn’t have to climb over it to get around the large tree branch. I watched his struggle with the body for a time, but made no move to help him, not out of malice but for practical reasons: it was a tight space where only one person could fit, and my hands were still cuffed.
“A ways. Somewhere around thirty feet or so,” he said, gesturing me to come closer. Having no real other choice, I did.
“And you want me to climb out there with my hands bound?” I asked incredulously.
“You don’t need to climb,” Ace replied, and before I could ask him what he meant, the madman had picked me up and tossed me out the window. Yes, you heard correctly. I got tossed out the window of a wrecked shuttle thirty or so feet off the ground, pinned there by a huge tree branch skewering it like a shish kebab, as if I were a sack of potatoes.
Thankfully, I was caught by Talis, who slung me over his shoulder (again, like the damn potato sack) and climbed down to the ground. I’ll be very honest with you, I think it was a lot farther than a mere thirty feet. Ace and I were going to have words. And no, some of those words won’t be me asking if he had known that Talis had been right there. I really didn’t want to know.
“Let’s go. I don’t fancy being here much longer,” Talis ordered once we reached the ground and he had set me on my feet. I was surprised by his gentleness, but then, he was in too much of a hurry to have me picking myself up with my wrists bound together.
“How long till we get out of here?” I asked.
“A few days,” Talis replied. “We’ll keep the moss perpendicular to our course,” he added as we started off. I sighed softly and resigned myself to a very long walk through dark wilderness that not only swallowed unwary travelers who had ventured too far, but now also had the folks who kindly shot us down hunting for us. To top off all this good news, I couldn’t trust any of my traveling companions except for M. Kit.
But as I was soon going to find out, I couldn’t afford not to trust them.
***