Authors: Gun Brooke
“I disagree,” she said softly. “Without the Disians, this forest would be in even greater danger of extinction. They're one with nature, both flora and fauna, and their mythical reputation ensures that no one blatantly violates the Thousand Year Pact. Without them, Cormanian exploiters would have leveled this paradise centuries ago.”
“God, you're blind.” Emeron sighed, obviously frustrated. “Finish your breakfast, Dwyn. It's time to wake the others and break camp.”
Within minutes, the camp buzzed with activity as the team collapsed the habitats and quickly stowed everything in the back of the three hovercraft. The men and women paid Dwyn little attention, and she knew not to get in their way by trying to help. Instead she readied her sample kits and handled her own gear. She had learned the hard way to never rely on or expect anybody else to carry her personal equipment.
She stashed the daypack behind her seat in the hovercraft and sipped the last of her coffee, then refilled her mug. Glancing over at Emeron's stark features she knew she would need all the caffeine she could find.
*
Weiss Kyakh stood behind her helmswoman who, during the last twenty years of avoiding SC authorities, she had come to trust with her life. She heard shuffling from behind, combined with M'Ekar's annoying yet well-modulated voice. Already exasperated with the pompous man, she focused on the reward waiting after they kidnapped the woman M'Ekar would then deliver to the Onotharians. Weiss would be happy when they finally reached intergalactic space.
“Are we there yet?” M'Ekar asked as he entered the small bridge.
“The Keliera space station is only fifteen minutes away, Ambassador. We're right on schedule,” she said, suspecting that her impatience with this petulant man shone through.
“And your sensors say that Jacelon's ship is there?”
“
Yes
.” She swiveled and glowered at M'Ekar. “Take a seat over at the navigation station. There's an extra chair.”
“Thank you.” The ambassador clearly chose to take her order as a polite offer.
“Keliera is hailing us,” the ops crewman said.
“Audio.” Weiss sat down in the captain's chair. “Keliera, civilian vessel
Viper
here, on a humanitarian mission, needing to dock to purchase supplies.”
“
Viper
, Keliera gatekeeper here. What's your final destination?”
“Gatekeeper, we're on a medical mission to the minefields of Hordonia Prime, just outside the border.” She smiled. Hordonia Prime was a desolate planet of outlaws who worked the mineral mines there and made a fortune that they burned just as fast, gambling and using drugs that were illegal within the SC. No one would question anyone on a medical mission to this hellhole, merely pity them.
“Good luck on that one,” the gatekeeper said predictably. “Sending coordinates for automatic docking at port 43. Welcome to the Keliera Station. Gatekeeper out.”
“Receiving coordinates, Captain,” the helmswoman said. “Initiating approach.”
“Excellent.” Weiss turned to M'Ekar. “So far, so good.”
“So far.” He did not seem impressed.
The ops crewman punched in commands. “Captain, the luxury cruiser is docked two levels directly above us. It won't take long to hack into the gatekeepers' roster.”
“Good. Report to me when you succeed. In the meantime, Ambassador, make yourself invisible. Your young fellow as well. No one seems to have noticed your escape yet, but obviously some people aboard this station know you personally, if I understand the situation correctly.”
“You do.” M'Ekar spoke through clenched lips.
“You'll soon have whatever revenge you're after.”
And I'll get the money I need.
“I'm in, Captain,” the ops crewman said triumphantly. “They sure don't have many safeguards in place.”
Weiss grinned. “But we're not going to tell them.”
“The luxury cruiser is due to leave in ten hours.”
“That doesn't give us very much time.” Weiss opened her communicator. “Ms. White. Time to move.”
“Can hardly wait, Captain,” a female voice purred. Gilda White, wanted for crimes on sixteen different homeworlds, was Weiss's head of security. The tiny blonde, with hair color to match her name, made others want to protect her, especially men. It didn't take them long to realize she was as lethal as she seemed innocent.
“See you at the airlock.”
*
“Did you talk to Rae and Kellen today?” Chief Diplomat Dahlia Jacelon asked Armeo O'Saral M'Aido, the boy who had become her grandson after her daughter married his guardian. At age thirteen, the young Gantharian/Onotharian hybrid possessed a natural maturity that Dahlia could relate to. Sometimes their easy relationship made her feel guilty that she had never been able to experience this type of closeness with her daughter Rae when she was a girl.
“Yes,” Armeo said, bubbling with enthusiasm. “They said they can't wait to see me. And Granddad too. He said he had a job for me when I get to Corma. They all miss me.”
“Of course they do. It's been two months, child.” Dahlia refrained from ruffling Armeo's hair. Having traveled through space on a luxury cruiser for weeks, they were now strolling down the main commerce street at the Keliera station, and Dahlia knew that even if Armeo didn't mind a quick hug in public, there were limits to how grandmother-silly she was allowed to be. “And you've been a very pleasant traveling companion.” Dahlia turned her head and smiled at the young woman who walked behind them. “You too, Ayahliss. You've been a great help.”
Ayahliss blushed faintly at the praise, and Dahlia stopped and put an arm around her. She was aware of the young Gantharian woman's idolization of Kellen and herself. Ayahliss was barely recognizable as the angry twenty-four-year-old woman who had come to stay with the Jacelons on Earth five months ago. Proper health care, nutritious food, and the comfort of a beautiful home had transformed Ayahliss. To look at her now, wearing red slacks and tunic, with her short black hair boasting a healthy shine, it was difficult to believe she had been one of the Gantharian resistance's most lethal members.
“I feel like I've known you much longer than I actually have,” Dahlia said.
“If I had gone to the refugee camps with the rest of the resistance fighters, my life would have been totally different. I owe Kellen everything for taking me to stay with her family.”
“Ayahliss, she sees something in you, most likely something of herself. She knows what it's like to be orphaned at a young age. That's why you're here and not on Revos Prime.”
“But Rae doesn't perceive me that way.” Ayahliss sighed.
“Rae will, once she understands how far you've come and how hard you're trying.” Dahlia knew Rae was wary of having a volatile young woman in Armeo's presence, though she disagreed with her daughter. She had seen firsthand how Ayahliss had come to adore the young prince with every beat of her heart.
“I doubt it,” Ayahliss spat. “She won't be impressed just because I've learned to use the proper fork.”
Dahlia knew Ayahliss hid her worry behind her sarcasm, a trait she and Rae had in common. “Rae and I aren't always on the best of terms, and that has often been my fault.” Dahlia kept her eyes on Armeo, who was a few steps ahead of them, looking in the windows. Four security officers were nearby, but she never lowered her guard when it came to this child. “Rae was so different from me, and so like her father, but both my husband and I still managed not to know her, or the woman she became. Trust me. Rae won't make the same mistake. To begin with, she may try only for Kellen's sake, but eventually she'll see what an amazing young woman you are.”
“Really?” Ayahliss asked quietly, and Dahlia knew that anyone seeing her like this would assume that she was a beautiful, bashful woman out shopping with her grandmother. Dahlia chuckled at the thought. Ayahliss was as lethal as Kellen was, and ten times more unpredictable. Having grown up as a street child, and later highly educated by monks who possessed unusual gifts, she was a raw diamond, with hard corners and jagged edges, in the process of being polished.
“Really. I don't see any reasonâ”
“Armeo, watch out.” Ayahliss threw herself forward, launching her thin, wiry body against a tall man who was about to corner Armeo. Her heel landed in the man's midsection, sending him staggering backward into a flower arrangement. The pots fell to the floor and broke into several pieces, dirt raining over all of them.
Plasma-pulse fire blazed repeatedly through the air, hitting two security officers. They fell to the floor, blood gushing out of their chests.
“Armeo.” Dahlia screamed and leapt forward as well, reaching for him. At the same time, hard hands pulled her back, away from Armeo and Ayahliss.
“Not so fast, Jacelon,” a female voice rasped in her ear. Something hard pressed into her ribs as the tall woman restrained her. “If you don't calm down, this plasma-pulse will make a big hole in you, and the pulse would go straight through and could hit the prince. We can't have that.” More people moved in on both sides of Dahlia and she tried to glimpse them as she struggled to free herself. Two burly looking men and a diminutive woman stood with weapons raised, aiming at Armeo, Ayahliss, and the guards.
The woman pulled Dahlia back and halfway through a door in the station's bulkhead. Dahlia fought with all her strength, but she wasn't a young woman anymore, and the plasma-pulse weapon was shoved so hard against her back, she feared it had cracked a rib.
“Grandma. No!”
To Dahlia's horror, Armeo was running toward them, the security officers barely able to hold on to his shirt. More plasma-pulse fire singed the air to Dahlia's left as the small woman covered her capturer's retreat.
“Armeo. No,” Dahlia croaked. “Stay away, son.”
“But,
please
, Grandma, they're hurting you.” The boy struggled furiously to free himself from the protecting arms of his guards. “Leave her alone. Let her go. I command you to let her
go
.”
A whirlwind of something red approached, which Dahlia barely recognized as Ayahliss in her red outfit. Much taller than the stranger, Ayahliss emitted a high-pitched battle call and sent the woman sprawling into the bulkhead. Dahlia stumbled backward as the woman holding her hauled her down the metal stairs. The bodyguards rushed forward and grabbed Ayahliss, tugging her away from the woman she'd floored.
The last thing Dahlia saw before the door closed was Ayahliss breaking free from one of the remaining bodyguards and lunging toward them.
Admiral Rae Jacelon looked up from her computer as three people rushed into her office, located within the SC military base on Corma. One of them was her wife, Kellen O'Dal, accompanied by Rae's father, Admiral Ewan Jacelon, and his aide de camp.
“Did I forget dinner again?” Rae asked, and looked first at Kellen and then at her father. Kellen seemed guarded, which was normal, but her father was pale and his features stern. Rae knew the expression. “What's happened?” She wondered if the Gantharian-Onotharian conflict had suddenly escalated.
“We just got word from SC headquarters on Earth, Rae,” Ewan said. “It's your mother. She's been kidnapped.”
“What?” Rae blurted after a moment's shocked silence and sprang from her chair. “How the
hell
did that happen?”
“We're not sure, though another piece of intel might explain it,” Ewan continued. “M'Ekar has escaped. The timeline fits.”
Rae remained standing for a few seconds before her knees gave way. She sat down with a thud. “Oh, damn it.” She dug her fingertips into her computer console so hard they must have left permanent indentations.
“He probably bribed one or more of his guards to help him.”
“He has no assets to use as bribes,” Kellen said. “According to intel, the Onotharian leaders confiscated his entire estate when the SC sentenced him.”
“He could have used something other than monetary offerings to persuade someone,” Ewan said. “Promises of power, glorious careers, for instance.”
“Where is Mother? What about Armeo and Ayahliss? Do we have a clue? Surely the implanted chip must have rendered M'Ekar harmless by now.”
“We think he found a way to disarm the chip. The Keliera space station confirmed our intel from headquarters. Keliera is operating at complete lockdown.” Ewan sighed.
“What about Armeo?” Kellen's voice vibrated with an underlying dark tone.
Ewan seemed at a loss for words and his aide de camp took over. “The prince is safe, ma'am. The young woman traveling with Diplomat Jacelon was hit by plasma-pulse fire, but managed to keep the prince from being abducted as well.”
“How badly?” Kellen snapped, and held on to the backrest of the visitors' chair she stood behind, her knuckles slowly blanching with the tension.
“Not life-threatening. Unfortunately, two of Diplomat Jacelon and the prince's security personnel were killed during the ambush. That's as much as we know, currently.”