Cassiel Winters 1: Sky's End (11 page)

How am I going to get myself out of this mess? I really don’t want to have to explain my duplicity to anyone, especially Jordanna, who’s already scared I will get myself, and maybe even her by proxy, kicked out of ESE. I exhale loudly, frustrated. My best and only option, it would seem, is to destroy it.

I get out of the downcore and reach into my nightstand for my gamma gun. I can explain away an accidental fire burst. But the drawer is empty.

Oh. That’s right
. It’s being inspected and overhauled after Operation Winters’ Storm.

Maybe I can short the thing out in a glass of water? I’m just about to get out of the downcore, when a powering up noise comes out of the flashing device. I freeze, one leg out of the downcore.

Uh, this is not good
. Astonished, a ray of light spreads out into a uniform rectangular splotch on the pod floor. Then my brain recognizes the sound: a transporter beam.

No, no, NO!

Chapter 12

I hurl myself under the downcore, instantly regretting not running for the door, though I wouldn’t have had time to get to it, because whatever happened is over.

It’s pitch black, utterly quiet.

Time seems to stand still. I listen hard.

Nothing.

Still nothing.

Relief washes over me, and I feel silly. Maybe the thing’s finally running out of power?

I’m about to lift a finger to crawl out from under the downcore when the faintest sound of movement causes my stomach to drop like inertial force.

Listen!

Yes, there it is again!
My brain seems to be suspended, hung up, apparently on its own stupidity.

The portal starts up again with the flashing light, and it illuminates the floor. On and off, out of time with my rapid heart rate.

In one flash, there’s a pair of boots; the next flash another pair.

Two Thell’eon! There are two Thell’eon in my pod!

You effing moron! You’re going to die! They have come to kill you, thanks to the fucking device, which is some kind of portal, and now they can infiltrate ESE, maybe kill others!

Oddly, my rage is directed at Hathaway for not spotting the technology for what it is.
Some genius
.

My face floods with blood, and my teeth grind together painfully, preventing me from screaming.
Why isn’t the ship’s intruder alert on?

I can’t believe how silent they are.

Come on. Hold it together. Formulate a plan!

What should I do?

Why do anything? Just wait it out
.
Your com-tab’s on the table. Grab it and set off the alarm after they leave to do whatever it is they are here to do.

Problem.

They don’t seem to be leaving.

One’s lingering in front of my books, the other’s milling about over by the privy, I think.
What the fuck?

The sound of a book being pulled off the shelf kicks me in the gut—one of them’s touching my things! I’ve got a few record-histories of Daz and me, and my parents on those shelves. If they lay a finger on those, I swear . . .

Why are they even here, nosing about in a cadet’s pod, and not infiltrating ESE to gain information or something?

It’s then that I realize how badly I have to pee.
Metatabulous.
The situation could not get any better.

“Is this hers?” whispers a raspy,
familiar raspy
, voice.

I stand corrected. It could get better.

Green Eyes is in my pod! And they must be referring to me. Who else could
her
be?

I remember how they looked at me, after Green Eyes shouted ‘Sift!’

I actually think my heart has stopped beating, and momentarily welcome The End.
Hold it together!
I breathe as shallow as possible, willing my body not to move a fraction.

Funny how hard that is when you have to think about it.

The other one does not answer, or maybe the word’s not translated.

Silence.

Maybe, just maybe, they gave up. Why not? Anything’s possible, right?

I think,
breathe quieter!
, as a warm hand grasps my ankle and drags me extraordinarily quickly out from under the downcore. I scream, downright hysterical, grasping at the bare floor and my downcore, tearing my fingernails in the process, and kick with all my might as soon as I’m fully out from under the downcore. I manage to make contact with something and sharp pain sears through my foot. The flashing light is like a strobe; one minute I can see them, the next I can’t. But my leg is free, and I waste no time scrambling to standing.

I know where the door is, and I can probably get to it before them.

Between flashes, somehow, Green Eyes has reached it first.

I step back, glancing around quickly to assess the situation. In one flash, I ascertain that there are indeed only two intruders in my pod. In the next flash I catch a glimpse of the other. Dark Eyes himself!

Incredible.

Surreal. There are monsters. In my pod. Wearing sharp metal objects and dark metallic suits. Art etched into their skin. That’s why they do it—to make them more menacing!

Each time the light flashes, they have moved closer, exuding excitement.

Not happening.
But it is
!

Is this some kind of game? Recalling how much Thell’eon are purported to love a good contest, I decide to capitulate.

“I’m sorry!” I say shakily. “Really, I’m very, very sorry. They made me do it. Please don’t—”

This has absolutely no effect, so I shut up. My heart sinks. If they wanted to kill me, they would have already. And since the portal’s now beaming a pad on the floor again, this can only mean one thing: they are here to take me!

I dash over my downcore, hoping without hope to evade them. There’s nowhere to go! I swipe at my shelves of books to create a distraction, or at least some kind of sign that a struggle took place. But I barely manage to knock down a few of them before Green Eyes smashes into me, backing me flat up against the wall in one bound with his towering frame.

Scream!

Too late!

His giant hand clamps tight over my mouth. He’s covering my nose, too.

I panic, trying to make it clear by exaggerated effort that I can’t breathe. I squirm and whimper. I can’t get any limb free no matter how I move.

“Your struggle is pointless, but enjoyable,” he whispers in my ear.

I freeze. My eyes search just above his broad round shoulders. I smell the musky scent of the warship on him, and it’s a toss up between peeing myself in terror or passing out from lack of oxygen.

Dark Eyes is coming at me with something, and I strain my eyes as far right as they will go in their sockets in order to make out some sort of endo-spray!

I squirm again, to no avail.

A tiny pinch where he sprays me on my neck.

A tingling sensation of some concoction entering my system.

A flash of pride sweeping over Dark Eyes.

Blackness.

Part Two

Chapter 13

I come to slowly, like I’m emerging from deep underwater. I have to fight like crazy to surface. Something’s very wrong, and before I get my eyes open I know what it is.

I have to pee. Urgently.

My brain loosely grasps at some thread. A strange smell.
You’ve smelled that weird earthy-metallic scent before. Come on. Where?

The Thell’eon ship! And it all comes back to me.

Where am I?

I struggle against the drug to open my eyes. As soon as I do, they clamp back down heavy. But the foggy scene that made its way to my brain is enough to get the cortisol swirling around. I manage to will my lids open and keep them open.

It
is
a Thell’eon ship!
No!
Somehow I’d hoped maybe all of this was a bad dream.

As I regain muscle control, incredibly slowly, I take in my situation. I’m resting in a seat that molds to my shape to keep me semi-upright in a hold just big enough for one person. Another hold, just like this one, only empty, is across the ship. It’s a small ship. In the center of the round vessel in front of me are four Thell’eons, leaning into thin metal chairs, each shaped in a loose ‘S’. I spot Dark Eyes and Green Eyes, eyes closed. Even in such a passive state, they’re threatening. It’s the razor sharp weapons still strapped on different parts of their bodies. No. It’s more than that. It’s their comportment. Takes a lifetime of training to develop that kind of physical threat, and, then to tame it into submission as needed. There are no consoles or controls that I can see. The ship’s incredibly compact, no doubt so it will fly fast,
away from Earth and ESE
!

Funny how the brain works. I know that I’m being taken away from everything that matters to me, that I’m in serious danger. But all that matters in this moment is relieving my bladder.

I can’t believe how groggy I am. I’m probably not supposed to come out of this drug so early.

I attempt to move in the hold but my body feels like dead weight. I make out some sort of almost invisible field in front of me. I struggle and manage to reach out and touch it ever so lightly. A jolt of incredible pain tears through my arm. Bursting white light blinds me momentarily.

All four Thell’eon open their eyes and look at me. My heart skips a beat.

And yet. I can’t help being fascinated by their technology. ESE Command did confirm my assumption that they interface with it somehow (no doubt why their ships are faster), and I suppose it’s how they have all sensed my movement.

Dark Eyes nods at Green Eyes, who gets up and comes toward me. The ship’s so compact he barely fits past the other Thell’eons. He seems larger to me in my incapacitated state.
Nope, not imagining it
. He’s not wearing anything up top but weapons, and he reminds me of a life-like sketch, his muscles are almost too prominent—only, no, those brandings or markings are too foreign to ever be dreamed up by humans. He’s reaching into his pocket in his pants, and I fear he plans to knock me out again.

“Please,” I croak out. My mouth feels stiff and full of cake. “I have to pee.”

My muffled words have no effect. Desperate, I say urgently, “I have to pee. You know, ur-i-nate,” I say with exaggerated enunciation, though it still sounds muffled. I’m really not myself.

He’s drawing in some code with his finger on the wall, maybe to let me pee, maybe to knock me out again. Since I can’t be sure. I keep at it desperately. “You know, drain the dragon. Squeeze the lemon?”

Oh, what do I care if I pee myself?
They’re the ones responsible for this situation. Just when I decide to end my misery, Green Eyes,
is he smirking?
, turns off the field and scoops me up out of the seat in his arms, and I gasp from the strain on my bladder. He carries me effortlessly around the nearby Thell’eons to the other side of the ship. At this point I don’t care that he’s touching me. The drug they gave me has rendered me docile. He’s my only chance of dignified relief. My eyelids feel heavy and I struggle to keep them open.
Must hold on.

He waves his wrist over the wall and a door vanishes revealing the tiniest of compartments. Just enough to fit one Thell’eon male with a hole in one side of the wall, and, on the other side, a slightly sloped seat with a hole in it. Perfect! Green Eyes props me up on my feet against the slanted hole and the door closes. I manage to tug down my pajama bottoms with great effort, then lean back down on the slant. The relief’s palpable.

With that emergency taken care of, my brain, which is working in super slow motion (I think it is this drug), fights to make sense of the situation.

It doesn’t get past
Why me?

I barely yank up my bottoms when the door slides open. Green Eyes scoops me up again, pressing me close to his chest.

Like being pressed up against a wall. Were it not for the abnormal warmth he’s emanating, I would think he’s made of marble. I shiver, realizing how cold it is on this ship, in my pajamas, and reluctantly enjoy the heat from his body. Really beautiful but masculine gray and white raised configurations run up the side of his neck. They trail off behind his ear.

He glances at me briefly, on the quick journey back to my hold. I’m adrift in his eyes, the color of a field of grass . . . so full of kindness and compassion and nobility.

Whoa. What the
—
Am I grateful to him? My stomach drops.

Cassiel, they are the enemy!

It’s this damn drug!

His scent takes me back to our encounter on the warship and an overwhelming sense of self-pity floods in. My vision blurs with tears. Fight as I may, I can’t keep my heavy head upright and it kind of flops against his chest. I hear myself sniffle.

When we get to my hold, Green Eyes props me up against the slope, which kind of nestles to my body. He takes care to rest my head against the back of the hold gently using both his hands. They linger there for a moment on either side of my face. I think he wipes away tears with his thumbs. “You would not be scared,” he says, gazing into my eyes. The translator is screwing up their tenses.

Would not be scared? Funny, that isn’t what I
would
not be feeling. Oh sure, fear’s present, but it’s more a sense of loss that’s gnawing at me. I can only assume I’m hurling millions of light years away from King, from the station, from Earth. I thought I was safe. I had a bright future. Somehow, I even thought Daz would be okay. And now all of these things are being taken from me. If I had the strength, I would punch Green Eyes right in the nose. But I don’t, so I struggle to look away.

He activates the shield, because I see it again. I wonder why he didn’t hypospray me again. Probably because he doesn’t need to. I have to fight to stay awake.

And I do wage a war on sleep, somewhat successfully, for what feels like an eternity. Every so often I manage to catch a glimpse of the Thell’eons. They no longer keep their eyes closed all of the time. They occasionally glance at me, as I do at them. It’s as though they are checking on their next meal. Or maybe that’s my mind playing tricks on me.

Once Dark Eyes looks at me during one of his rotations. What a neat way to fly a ship. It seems like they pilot it with their minds.
I would love to try that,
I think impartially.
What’s wrong with me?
Odd sorts of tangential and impartial observations occur to me, a result of the drug, no doubt.

Like how the Thell’eon males must be so attractive for evolutionary reasons: they have to attract women who will never be attracted to them.
Ha!
Serves them right to have endure that kind of sexual frustration. Then I remember why human women are so coveted among the galaxies.
Hey, wait, I’m a human woman!
This jolts me out of my dazed and artificial comfort zone, but only for a second or two.

I do manage to contemplate one useful thought. Why am I not on the warship already? Either the portal device couldn’t send us very far, a distinct possibility, or . . .
think now
. . . or . . . they are taking me somewhere else?
Oh. I don’t like this idea at all.

At some point, I’m jostled by a minor vibration. The Thell’eons all have their eyes closed. A minute or so later I hear strange sounds, like power fluctuations. No, more like gamma bursts. Are they firing at something?

The ship suddenly vibrates real hard. I’m unable to hold myself against the frame of the seat, and press up against the field. The pain’s incredible, if only for a second. I imagine it must be what it feels like to be hit by lightning in one of Earth’s storms. When it releases me, I’m about to scream in agony when,
poof
, the pain’s gone.

I turn to the giants, but none of them seem to have noticed what happened. Bet they’re making rapid maneuvers, because that is what I would do. As this thought occurs to me, I slide straight up really quick, hitting my head on the top of the hold, about two feet above me, before being forced back down so hard my teeth gnash in my jaw.

The pain makes me violently angry. This hold was made for someone much bigger than me!

And yet, even in my drugged, pained, stupor I leap to a thrilling conclusion.

We must be in battle! ESE has come to rescue me!

Oh no. King! Please don’t let it be King.
Our best fighter ships are probably no match for this one.

“Brace yourself!” shouts Dark Eyes, without opening his eyes. He must be speaking to me. So he does know I’m being hurt. And yet he’s doing nothing about it!

Hope gives me strength, or the drug’s wearing off, because I manage to do as he says just as another blast jolts the entire craft. I keep myself in place for half of it, but slip off and into the field for the remainder. I get a scream out this time, but it’s cut short by depth of pain throughout my entire body that I never knew was possible. I’m dying. No. Really.

When it’s over, as quickly as the last time, I collapse back in the hold, breathing shallow and surprised to be alive. Green Eyes carries on with his task, occupied. Dark Eyes is still watching me, probably to ascertain whether I’m dead.

Idiots!

“Turn it off!” I try to shout at him. I look down at a strange sensation. My skin’s bright red where it was pressed against the field, like it has been scalded. Just now there’s tingling, and,
yup
, pain. I panic. My heart’s fluttering high up in my chest, and it isn’t settling back down. I don’t think I could survive another blast from the field.

But the field suddenly disappears! Dark Eyes must have done it with his mind, though his eyes are closed once more.

I kind of slide forward and down, then collapse on the floor, unable to prevent or really soften the blow.

Dark Eyes, who stares at me again, appears surprised by this. Maybe he thought I’d be able to hold myself up. But the drug has rendered me rag doll.

This new bit of freedom presents opportunity, but I’m so weak I don’t know what to do. I would like to hurt these Thell’eons, to interfere with their flying and aid my own cause, but there isn’t a weapon in sight.

With their eyes closed it would be so easy . . .

The ship shakes and hurls around violently. I think,
Why are there are no dampeners
? As I’m thrown straight into the back of one of the Thell’eon’s chairs at an incredible velocity, pain ripping through my shoulder.

I gasp, and try to grab my elbow to hold my arm steady.
Dislocated
. I shoot backward at tremendous speed, my head whip-lashing against the wall.
OW
. I hurl forwards into the same chair, hitting it with the same shoulder again.
Noooo
. My limp body shoots up at least nine feet into the ceiling head first,
helpless to stop it!,
before I drop down on the ground at Green Eyes’ feet in a crumpled heap.

Please. I want to die.

Instead, two strong objects shovel me back until I lay pressed firm against something.
He’s holding me against his chair using his legs!
The pain sets in.
Sweet stars
, I’m lying on my dislocated shoulder.

Forget that. Searing hot blades. Stabbing inside my skull. Won’t stop. I’m dying!

Every movement of the ship worsens the explosive pounding in my battered brain. Pressing so hard inside my skull.

A purposeful thought:
someone please cut open my skull. It’s too small for my brain. Just cut the top off and give it some more room!

Please! Help!

Please, make it stop!

Finally, my mind graciously steps up, and shuts everything off.