Unchained (4 page)

He shook himself,
remembering where his libido had gotten him in the past. He’d
already made that mistake with Mora. He had ignored his own hard
and fast rule:
do not get involved with a
crewmember
. He grimaced at the hard and
fast part. Not a good choice of words at the moment, but the rule
remained. Business as usual, especially with this one. She was
trouble all the way, no matter now innocent she claimed to
be.

What worried him the most was that he almost
believed her tonight when she told him she knew nothing about the
box. Almost. He’d already played the fool one too many times
today.

It all seemed perfectly clear until he saw
her wipe a hand across her eyes, her shoulders shake. Grey backed
away from the window and blew out a long breath. She was crying.
She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who cried easily. In the
vastness of the sanctuary, she looked small and alone.

Grey paced his room, feeling guilt and anger
and wondering why he felt the need to do something. Then he turned
and walked to the door.

Night was as quiet as the day was loud in
the woods of Avion. Cidra stood alone in the moonlight on a planet
she both loved and hated, trying to forget who she was.

The sanctuary swept out around her. A swirl
of wind haunted the trees and cooled her sweat-dampened hair,
sending a shiver through her. The dinner conversation must have
been what triggered that wretched nightmare again. After all this
time, she thought she had finally outgrown it. A tangled confusion
of screams and fire, smoke and siege, dragging her down into its
dark terror. They were the twisted memories etched in her mind of
how she had escaped the hand of death long ago.

Cidra drew in a shuddering breath. Like
every day for the past ten years, she wondered what happened to
them that night, how they died, why she had been spared. She would
never know. She wasn’t sure which was the crueler fate: dying with
them or living without them. Tears streamed down her face in a
silent purge of injustice and grief. Cidra hugged herself tight in
a vain effort to control the trembling.

There were days when she missed them so
much. Too many times she’d wished for a different life, to be
someone else, anyone else. Now she had that chance to rectify the
past, to build herself a new future. But regardless of Syrus’
order, she knew it would be her duty and her mission. Grey Stone
had his own agenda.

Anger flashed through her. He thought she
set him up. She still couldn’t believe it. Why would he think such
a thing? Not that it mattered. It was perfectly obvious that he
didn’t want this mission, and he was even less enthused to harbor
her. The only reason he agreed to take her was because of
Syrus.

A new flood of tears burned down her face.
For once, she didn’t fight it, allowing the pain to crash over her
in waves as if it would somehow redeem her. She cried for her
parents and brothers, her life as she had once known it, for a
mission that seemed impossible for her to achieve alone.

Abruptly, another sensation broke the
desolation that engulfed her. Her danger sense triggered. Cidra
spun around to find Grey standing there, bathed in moonlight like a
divine apparition.

Not him
.
Not now
.
She lowered her head and struggled to pull herself
together.

He stepped closer. “Cidra.”

Grey’s fingers slipped under her chin,
gently lifting her face to his. His eyes were gray pools filled
with warmth and strange understanding.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want
his sympathy. The very thought sent a surge of energy and strength
through her.

“
I’m fine,” she said,
opening her eyes to meet his. “I can take care of
myself.”

His expression darkened in the moonlight.
Warm fingers dropped from her chin. The air became distinctly
cooler.

“
I hope so,” he stated in a
tight voice. “I don’t have time to play guardian.”

She nearly growled. “Who do you think has
been watching over Syrus and Barrios all these years?”

A wry smile crossed his face. “I’m surprised
you had time with all the plans you and Syrus were making.”

Cidra’s eyes narrowed. “I knew nothing about
this mission before tonight. If I had, I wouldn’t have picked you
to help me.”

He took a step toward her, charging large
and broad into her personal space. She held her position at the
clear intrusion.

His voice was low and menacing. “Let’s get
one thing straight. I’m the best you are going to get because no
one, and I mean no one, would take this mission except me. But I
don’t have to be happy about it.”

She clenched her fists at her sides. “And
neither do I.”

CHAPTER THREE

Tausek, the supreme ruler of Dakru, surveyed
his kingdom from the solitude of his private chambers towering over
the land. He stood silent and motionless in the darkness, a black
figure casting no shadow, seeing all. The entire floor rotated
slowly atop his twenty-story tower building. A bank of windows
offered a generous panoramic view of the Capital City.

As usual, the sunset had been glorious. A
blood red spectacle only a true native of this scarred, sterile
land could appreciate. A violent sunset for an equally violent
world.

Far below him, barrel fires dotted the unlit
streets of the city like strings of lights. Silhouetted figures
moved around the meager flames. It must be cold tonight, he mused.
The street cleaners would have a busy morning picking up frozen
bodies. The thought warmed him for such was life on Dakru. The weak
perished, leaving room for stronger, healthier hands. A most
profitable cycle.

Charitably, Tausek contemplated the wretched
souls of his world. Criminals, murderers, outcasts, refugees—the
collective scourge of every planet in the sector. The hands he
needed to harvest the precious black treasure called Thorite from
Dakru’s underground mines. Thorite ruled supreme as the key
component for space travel, an accelerator necessary for the jump
to hyperspace. Crystals so rare, so perfect, cold and black as the
night. Dakru was infinitely rich with them. The veins ran deep,
far, and wide.

Unfortunately, Thorite’s crystalline form
was brittle, its face layers twisted beneath the ground. Mechanical
extraction had proven too damaging to the mineral’s delicate
hexagonal rods, making manual harvesting a necessity. Hands.
Expendable hands.

Tausek never had any trouble finding them.
Dakru gladly opened its doors to all, offering nearby worlds an
outlet for their social problems, prisoners, and exiles. A
surprisingly hardy lot. Finding themselves stranded on this
desolate world, they had no choice but to work for food and
shelter.

Regardless of their strength or species,
eventually they all perished. Thorite was, for all its beauty,
quite deadly. Its toxic presence devastated a being’s lungs beyond
repair. Tausek deemed treatment pointless, merely creating a
negative impact on profits. After all, hands were so easily
replaced. As long as societies ran on emotions, his steady supply
was guaranteed. Anger, rage, jealousy, greed—they were the sins
that filled prisons and eventually populated Dakru’s mines.

Deme slid her long, furred body along his
leg, a fine clicking noise emanating from her
throat—uncharacteristic affection for such a notoriously lethal
creature.

“
Easy Deme, my
pet.”

An identical set of
luminescent eyes peered at him from behind a chair. The pair of
corvits were a gift from a grateful customer. Deme and Deik were
mates for life, dedicated to each other and their master. Tausek
found them immensely intelligent, loyal, and useful. They obeyed
his simple commands flawlessly: stay, come, guard, and his personal
favorite,
target
.
With their razor sharp claws and teeth, they were born killers.
Unlike Tausek’s human forces, the corvits had never failed
him.

A soft bell chimed in the tower room. Deme
and Deik leapt to attention and moved stealthily to flank
Tausek.

“
Enter,” Tausek ordered,
not turning. His tower was a fortress. There was no need to fear
his enemies here. Besides, he knew who it was—his eyes and ears of
the universe, Commander Plass.

The door slid open and Commander Plass
entered, impeccably dressed in a standard d’Hont uniform, a small
insignia the only indication of his superior rank and his d’Hont
designation.

He stopped a suitable distance in front of
Tausek and saluted.

“
Permission to report,
sir.”

“
Proceed.”

Plass replied, “I have word from Avion that
Syrus Almazan has died, apparently of natural causes.”

“
So the great teacher of
the Kin-sha, fallen at last,” Tausek observed calmly. “Is that the
last of his family?”

“
Only a niece survived him,
sir. A young woman. Her name is Cidra, I believe.”

Tausek’s black eyes narrowed. “Cidra.” He
tasted the word slowly. “An unusual name. A name not easily
forgotten. Tell me Commander, why does that name sound
familiar?”

Plass hesitated. “I don’t know. Do you wish
an inquiry?”

Tausek’s mouth twitched. “No need. I know
where I’ve heard that name before. Jarid Faulkner had a young
daughter named Cidra.”

Plass balked. “It can’t possibly be the same
person. As you ordered, we killed everyone in that house. There
were no survivors.”

“
Perhaps you missed one.”
Tausek turned his back to Plass. “You will personally investigate
this matter. I’ll expect your report shortly.”

Before the door had slid shut behind Plass,
Tausek knew what the answer would be. Instinct was not an emotion;
it was a tool.

He had no doubt that she was alive. While
she lived, the daughter of Jarid Faulkner was an unacceptable
threat. She was the only person left capable of destroying his
power. She must be found and eliminated. With her, the reign of the
Kin-sha would end. Using the d’Hont as his own personal weapon,
Tausek would control the sector, unconditionally and unimpeded.

Only then would the master plan
continue.

As Grey’s K12 short-range transport jet
cleared Avion’s atmosphere, Cidra marveled at the breathtaking
glory of space. Masses of brilliant stars wove an intricate pattern
across an endless darkness, a tapestry crafted for eternity. Opaque
veils of light shimmered through a myriad of galaxies, curtains of
green, white, and red. Swirls and spirals, rivers of light
separated by a black nothingness. Beauty beyond words. Beauty
beyond boundaries.

With great reluctance, she pulled herself
away from the incredible view.

“
So you think this was from
the original Dakru shipment?” She held the slim ampoule of Ximenes
vaccine from Syrus’ box up to the main cabin lights.

Barrios answered from behind her amid a
shuffle of papers. “The serial number assigned to that vial falls
within the reported range on the printed manifest from Syrus’ box.
The manifest dates and details match the time of the Dakru
shipment.”

He mumbled, “I’d sure like to know how he
got his hands on these documents. We are talking highly classified
information here. They must have been stolen. But the real question
is, how did Syrus get a vial from that shipment?”

Cidra pondered the implication. “Maybe it’s
true. Maybe it never left Avion.”

“
I don’t buy it, Cidra,”
Barrios stated flatly. “Your father would have done his
part.”

She hesitated. “You don’t think Syrus had
anything to do with the disappearance of the shipment, do you?”

Barrios sighed loudly. “No, but he knew that
it didn’t just vanish, that’s for sure. We’ll know more when we
decode and run this holo recording aboard Stone’s ship. Too bad
Syrus didn’t have a holo deck to play it on.”

She glanced back at Barrios twirling the
stubby, cylindrical cartridge containing the holo recording from
Syrus’ box in his fingers. It could hold a massive amount of
three-dimensional visual recordings as well as raw data.

“
Any idea what’s on
it?”

Barrios shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. Maybe
nothing.” He grinned at her. “Maybe answers.”

An affectionate smile touched her lips. This
morning Barrios had accepted an offer as head cook onboard Grey’s
ship. She suspected Barrios was more interested in Syrus’ mission
than the position. Regardless, he would never know how much his
presence meant to her.

Cidra handed the vial back to him. Filling
the back seat of the small K12 jet, he looked relaxed although
Cidra had never known him to fly. She wondered if he had logged
some time in the SymPod.

The SymPod was the closest she had ever come
to actual flying. Not much larger than a one-man escape pod, it
simulated the piloting experience of a variety of ships, under any
condition and battle setting. The flat console could replicate any
ship and every control. Theirs was an older version, gleaned from
the Avion government by the remaining Kin-sha, capable of training
pilots under actual battle conditions without risk.

She had enjoyed the exercises immensely,
logging endless hours, memorizing battle strategies, executing
tried and true maneuvers, and making up a few new ones along the
way. The SymPod was exhilarating, remarkably realistic, and
completely safe. It was also the closest thing to freedom she could
find on Avion.

Syrus had isolated her well, protecting her
from danger of discovery. Unfortunately, that protection came at a
steep price: the absence of friends, companions, peers. As a tremor
of excitement whisked through her, she realized that was about to
change. She covertly glanced at the man who had made it all
possible.