No Such Thing (22 page)

Ryelle gasped, eyes flying open before she winced them shut again. She hadn’t given much thought to why the GenTec had chosen Mirabella to mobilize
in such large numbers. They were drawing the Fleet here for a reason, and now she knew why. The sun’s massive energy kept the Fleet from being able
to detect the device. They would keep coming closer, fighting the GenTec ships, until they were right where the GenTecs wanted them. Then they would
detonate the device and the sun would go nova, forcing the other stars to do the same. The resulting series of supernovas would obliterate everything in
this sector of space.

Ryelle couldn’t comprehend destruction on that scale. Why? Wouldn’t the GenTec be destroying themselves in the bargain? Unless they had a plan
to escape. She supposed once they’d gotten the Fleet entrenched here, the GenTec could leave a few sacrificial ships behind to keep the Fleet
interested while the rest fled. She shuddered. With the majority of the Fleet forces turned to space dust, the GenTec would be free to invade and conquer
their ancestral homes.

Horror at the concept set tinder to her already seething rage. If she’d had any qualms or regrets about what she’d planned to do, they were
blasted to bits in the face of the enemy’s plans. With grim fury, she reached into the threatened sun and plucked the device from its heart. She had
planned to use herself as bait, but this would make her so much more irresistible.

Opening the com for general transmission, she said, "This is Telenetic Ryelle Soliere. I am alone on an unarmed vessel. I’ve come to offer my
services. I am the most powerful telenetic known to humankind, but my people treat me like a monster, like a beast to be caged and tormented." She
could hear the outrage in her voice, the clear tones of truth that rang through the words. The fact that she wasn’t lying only spun her fury higher.
"I deserve better. I deserve to be treated with respect and simple decency. I deserve a place where I can be myself, where I can use my ability as it
was meant to be used. It’s my understanding that the GenTec do not have any telenetic ability. Is this true?"

There were a babble of voices, mainly from the Fleet, protests and objections, some contrived like the commander’s and some honest like Hoti’s
snarl of vindicated hatred. Here she was, turning to the other side, fulfilling the Institute’s most terrifying predictions of her destructive
capability. "Just wait," she murmured in response with a flash of black humor. "You haven’t seen anything yet."

Her com indicated a waiting visual transmission and she accepted, squinting through the light and watching the viewer in fascination as two GenTec faces
appeared. Other than the general shape, there was nothing left to suggest that they’d once been human. One had skin like oil, dark and greasy, with
nothing that looked like eyes or nose, only a seething mass of flesh in the center of its head and a slash below that could have been a mouth. The other
was a bit more recognizable, with slitted eyes and protruding jaw, its skin a mass of layered plates like bony armor.

"You are telenetic?" the armored one hissed, eyes glittering deep in its sockets.

"Yes. I’m willing to put my talent at your disposal. Even more, I’m willing to offer my genetic material for your study and replication.
In return, I want safe passage, a decent home, a respectable position in your society, and the chance to destroy them," she answered, pointing a
bitter finger towards the Fleet.

"You expect us to believe? Such tales are for defectives."

She blinked at the term but didn’t hesitate. "You can see that I’m on a weaponless conveyer. You can also see that the Fleet is
attempting to retrieve me. And if you need proof that I am as powerful as say…"

She reached out with her talent and crumpled the Fleet fighters arrowing toward her one by one, even as they began to flee back to the main ships. She left
them adrift with large dents around them that looked like the fingers of a huge fist.

"You left them alive," the GenTec hissed.

"If you refuse to accept me, I need a fall back position," she said with a gesture of dismissal. "Do you believe in my strength?"

It studied her with glittering eyes, silent for the moment. Ryelle kept watch on the GenTec fleet and felt a surge of satisfaction to feel them closing in.
They wanted her. They might believe they had the advantage with their sun killer, but they were still desperate to have her talent. They would see such
power as an irresistible addition to their genetic enhancements, creating better, stronger humans.

"If you want me, come and get me," she murmured with a taunting smile into the creature’s alien eyes. "You might also be interested
to know that I’m in no way suicidal. With me around, you won’t be needing this." She pulled the sun killer away from the suns, hurtling
it through the light to her position.

The GenTec’s eyes widened and an alien sound came through the com. It wasn’t any language that she could understand so she ignored it, stopping
the device at a safe distance from her conveyer. The thing was still glowing, murderously hot from being in the sun.

Ryelle turned off the viewer, knowing she no longer needed to entice. They were pouring toward her from all sides. After placing a protective bubble around
the device and her conveyer, she ignored the hostile incoming ships and reached for the suns. Diving her talent into them, she pulled, creating two rivers
of sunfire that began to wrap around the GenTec forces. There were still a few ships beyond the far side of the suns and her roaring tongues of fire. The
Fleet was not prepared to cover that side, so she ripped them apart with sharp stabs of her talent, keeping her mind filled with rage and sunfire and away
from the death she doled out so brutally.

Fighting the pull of the stars’ gravity, she drew their fire out farther, sweeping the two arms around to herd the GenTecs toward her. She needed a
way to contain them, to bring them close enough so that she could destroy them all at once. If she had left them spread out, some would have escaped while
she was focused in a different direction. The Fleet had their orders—they would destroy any GenTecs that tried to escape to the front or above and
below her barriers of fire. She pulled faster, overtaking some of the ships in wild bursts of killing flame.

The ones closest to her had figured out the trap by now and were pummeling her with weapons blasts. She ignored their frantic efforts. She was filled with
flame and had no room in her for anything else, not even the violent tumbling of her conveyer within its protective bubble. The arms of sunfire swept
around, forcing the GenTec into her killing field, and when the tongues of fire met in a corona around her, she let the flame die away.

Immediately the GenTec began to flee, but it was too late. With a cry of rage and despair, Ryelle detonated.

The force of her killing blow swept out from her in a wave of death, overtaking every ship and shattering them to pieces. They died and died and died, and
she was the hammer, she was vengeance, she was pain and hate in killing form. For the stars they would have destroyed, for the shipmates she’d come
to love, for worlds of children who knew peace.

For her mother who lay dying.

She burned and finally found her limit, after moving suns and destroying thousands of ships, killing hundreds of thousands of people. She burned and cried
out and let her talent falter. The silence that folded over her was dreadful. Her little conveyer drifted, listing painfully to port, in a vast, endless
debris field. The stars’ accusing brilliance limned the wreckage in dazzling judgment, prostrating her weak and shivering body to the conveyer floor.
Murderer.

She wept, a lost and lonely child in a blinding sea of light.

Chapter 12

Fifteen Years Later

Ryelle stared at the request, her heart thumping slow and hard in her chest. Raising her hand, she slipped her fingers through the holographic words,
watching the light play over her skin. After all these years.

Request: Telenetic assistance.

Location: Mobulus 3 Transfer Station, Benzai Quadrant

Requesting Party: Master Chief Engineer Declan McCrae

Declan. She swallowed hard, staring at the name ghosted on her skin.

"Ryelle? What’d you find, another request from the Admiral wanting his landscape stones redone?"

She snorted a laugh and turned to lift an eyebrow at Ignacia Salvo, Director of the Institute. "You wish, Sal. Can you tone down that crush
you’ve got on the man? It’s embarrassing."

The redhead stiffened, staring down her regal nose at Ryelle with a quelling frown. "I do not have a crush on Admiral Task. I would never be so
juvenile. I merely covet his power and riches. Though he does have a nice ass," the woman added with a thoughtful tap of a finger on her chin and a
faintly predatory gleam in her eye. When Ryelle snickered, Sal narrowed her dark green eyes and refocused. "I was just curious what had you so
riveted on the requests. You aren’t thinking of doing another of those mining jobs, are you? Let me remind you that we had to stick you in
decontamination three separate times to get the stink off."

"No!" Ryelle shuddered at the memory. "No more trinium mining. The smell of that horrible mixer got stuck in my nose and nothing tasted
right for a month after. Actually, I was looking at this one." She tapped Declan’s request, her heart still battering her ribs in reaction.
Text only, though—no visual of him.
Damn.

"Mobulus…that sounds familiar."

"It’s the company that owns and operates those worm-hole stations on the spiral. This request is from one of their onsite managers, not a
company head. Detail says…" She paused to read it and frowned. "That they’ve had a series of attacks on supply ships. Their
security hasn’t been able to stop them or pinpoint the location of the attackers. Nothing stolen, just ships left adrift."

Sal strode over until they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the rippling display. "That’s odd. Oh,
Master
Chief Declan McCrae.
God, I love he-man titles. Think he’s hot?"

Ryelle burst into laughter, slipping an arm through the older woman’s. They’d been best friends since the day they’d met and the first
words out of Ignacia’s mouth had been a threat of bodily harm if Ryelle even
thought
of calling her Iggy. "Director, I believe
I’m going to go find out."

Sal did a double take on her face. "Are you serious? That’s in the middle of nowhere. And minor pirates aren’t anywhere near your league.
Be a bit like watering a potted petunia with an ocean."

"Cute. But since there really isn’t any job that
is
in my league, this one will do nicely."

Sal rolled her eyes, her voice turning dry as a fossil. "The Mirabella Heroine, the Sunfire Angel herself, is going to trek off to some distant
spiral and deal with a couple of petty thieves?"

"They didn’t steal anything."

"Incompetent petty thieves, then. Ryelle, I feel it’s my sacred duty to warn you. They are unlikely to have any good restaurants."

"It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Especially when we’re due for another government inspection."

"I knew it!" Sal cried with betrayal on her face and hilarity in her eyes. "I knew you had ulterior motives. I thought you loved me, you
little creep. Abandoning me to the government goons—"

"Have you noticed that the suits are getting tighter these days? And last inspection they sent a couple of stunners. Remember the guy with the
shoulders like a mountain and eyes like melting honey—"

"Sold. You go off on your little backwater vacation, darling. I’ll keep the place up and running somehow."

Chuckling, Ryelle headed for the exit, crossing between their two work spaces. What had been the board room for the Institute heads had been turned into a
spacious dual office for the new Director, Telenetic Ignacia Salvo, and the Advocate for Telenetic Rights, Ryelle Soliere. Five years had passed since
their triumphant takeover—officially described as "restructuring"—of the Institute, and she still felt a warm glow of satisfaction
on seeing the dual work space. Some triumphs never got old.

And some pains never went away. She thought of Declan’s request and felt her stomach flip. He hadn’t asked for a specific telenetic. Did he
even remember their time together? In the beginning she had tried, over and over again, to contact him. When she finally resigned herself to his rejection,
she’d still watched him from a distance. He’d resigned his Fleet commission at Mirabella, hopping off ship at the first inhabited system.
He’d made his way back home to the Nine Rings, only to head out again shortly thereafter on a series of increasingly complicated mechanical
engineering jobs, until he found Mobulus and the wormhole project. They were made for each other and Declan swiftly became head of their project to create
stable artificial wormholes for bulk goods transport. Currently, wormholes were still too dangerous for transportation of living things, but she’d
heard rumors that they were getting closer to a breakthrough.

In the secret recesses of her heart, she was enormously proud of him and pathetically still pined for him. She’d told no one, not even Samuel Task,
of her continuing interest and feelings for the man. Declan had made it agonizingly clear years ago with his silence that he wanted nothing further to do
with her.

Until now. But he hadn’t specified anyone in his request. Remembering the details of that request, her heart jerked again. Someone was attacking his
supply line, perhaps putting him in danger. Her skin itched with the need to leave right
now
and go to him.

She took a deep, calming breath, grateful that Sal hadn’t suspected anything. Then again, she’d had years of practice hiding her deepest
emotions. Keeping her stride measured and unhurried, she moved through the admin building and stepped out onto the skyglide, cruising to the dormitories
where she had an on-campus suite of rooms. She preferred to be close to the students, as their teacher and rights advocate.