Beauty and the Fleet (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 2) (18 page)

Woolly would probably kill her on sight, but she had to take the chance that Arryn had given her the information she needed right from the leech's mouth.

Beatrix lunged backward and snatched the blue orb. The world melted away around her.

She'd intended to throw the orb across the room to distract the leech. Now there was nothing in her hands to throw. Gradually, a new room came into focus as if she were stepping through a clearing fog, only the fog didn't completely clear. It hovered at the edge of her vision, an oppressive wall of Colarian grey that pushed down on her like a shroud. Out of the fog drifted dark shapes. They swam through the air, brushing against one another and then against Beatrix. With each touch came a cold splash of information that was like ice in her veins. It raced through her body until it hit her brain with the force of a bullet. The information was so random it didn't make sense until more of the slithering bodies added their touch and then their information and a picture began to form.

Beatrix tried to pull away mentally and physically. The bodies were the symbionts, leeches, Anthrak. Some part of Beatrix knew she was still in the house, holding that eerie blue orb. If she could just let go, this would all go away. It didn't help. The Anthrak worked her stationary form into their floating pattern and began to steadily brush against her, never giving her a break from their icy touch or their overload of information.

Piece by piece, they were molding her brain to be a part of their singular consciousness. This was the Quorum, the basis for their entire reality. Beatrix did her best to turn against the stream. There was no way she could accomplish it. Realization crashed through her like an avalanche. In this world there was nothing
but
the stream, and she was only a single drop of water. She finally understood Hands' cries. The Anthrak consciousness was so pervasive it felt as if she were being erased. Inside her every cell, her every thought, her very soul, there was a creeping coat of grey ice threatening to consume her—the Anthrak.

Fear gripped her heart like a vice while the wall of grey slammed through her mind, obscuring her memories one by one. She wrapped herself around the memory of a long winter night spent reading when she was supposed to be asleep, and then was ripped away. The same thing happened to her first sparring match with Torch. Just as she was about to slam him into the mat a grey wall came down and crushed the memory flat. Every warm thought she turned to was impossible to hold for more than a fraction of a second before it was eaten by the void of the Anthrak consciousness. Her last bastion was her first memory of her father. She remembered what it was like to be small enough that her entire hand was filled by holding a single one of his fingers. It made her feel safe in a way that she hadn't felt since his death. She held onto that feeling until it, too, faded away and left her standing cold and alone in an expanse of grey. That's when they came for her identity.

She couldn't let them take it. It wasn't until they came to take it away that she truly understood what it was. Arryn had survived this onslaught for years and found a way to fight back once the opportunity presented itself. That meant it didn't truly destroy consciousness, it only smothered it. She held on tightly while her idea of self was eroded by the implacable tide of the Anthrak. She knew if she lost this fight, she would be lost forever in the Quorum. Her thoughts were eventually forced down to just one mantra. "I am Beatrix. I am Bumble Bea. I am Sting."

Every cycle of her mantra was answered: "We are Anthrak."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Beatrix had been confined in a lot of ways in her life. She had been locked away in an orphanage, cramped in a berth in outer space, and imprisoned in Colarian ships, cells, and hospital beds. None of them compared to this. Not only was she cut off from movement, she couldn't even sense her body, and she was denied her thoughts. But if there was one lesson she'd learned in prisons, it was this: endure. If she could hold on long enough, something would change. All she had to do was hold onto her sense of self and eventually, she would have a chance at freedom.

"I am Beatrix," she repeated for what felt like the millionth time. Before she could finish the rest of her mantra of self, a wall of fur and muscle collided with her body at unhealthy speed. Her first thought was to be happy that she had a body again. Her second thought was a resounding yowl of pain.

She tumbled to the floor of the bedroom. Her scream was cut short due to lack of air. The leech had launched Arryn's body straight into her midsection, causing the blue orb to go flying across the room. The lack of Anthrak thoughts left a void in her mind, and mother nature hates a vacuum. A tumble of thoughts cascaded through her brain at lightning speed, bringing plenty of adrenaline along with them. The combination was a heady mixture that had her body acting before her rational thoughts could catch up. A knee thrust up to catch Arryn's chin. He hadn't thought his tackle through in his desperation to get her. His head snapped back and, surprisingly, his grip loosened.

Still gasping for breath, Beatrix clawed out from beneath the behemoth and dragged herself toward the door. She had to find Woolly. She remembered that now. Everything would be fine if she could just find Woolly. If he didn't help her, at least he would kill her, and that would be a lot better than what this leech had planned. She clambered to her feet and grabbed one of the heavy wooden chairs. The leech had just pulled itself up to a knee when she smashed it in the back of the head. A strange pang of guilt washed over her for the hurt she had caused Arryn. He would live, though. Another part of her wanted to change that; keep beating him until he was a bloody pile of pulp on the floor. Even that part of her was confused though, as to whether it was out of mercy for what Arryn suffered at the hands of the Anthrak, or as revenge for her father.

On her flight back to Nedra she would have a lot of stuff to work out. Her head swam with excitement at the idea that escape might be possible. She hit Arryn one more time with the chair to be certain that he would be down for a minute and bolted out the door. She could live with the guilt if it meant leaving this place and taking her friends with her.

Beatrix flew down the hallway lined with bedroom doors, out the sitting room, and into the hall filled with photos of a happy family that didn't exist any more. There was a guard barreling toward her, death on two legs. He didn't have time to raise his gun, their combined speed eating up the distance between them too quickly. The guard, used to taking on large opponents in contests of strength, lowered his shoulder to prepare for impact, expecting his vastly superior weight to win the day. Beatrix knew better. She slipped into a slide, her right leg raised off the floor just enough to hit him at his center of gravity. His momentum carried the guard over her and tumbling down the hallway. Beatrix pulled herself to her feet with nothing more than a bruised arm where the guard's gun had grazed her.

Before the guard could recover, Beatrix was out of the hall and back into the kitchen. She threw the glass container of juice she'd left on the counter at the closed door she'd just come through. It shattered with a satisfying crash, leaving glass shards and slippery juice on the floor. There was a wooden block holding knives on the counter, so she snatched the largest, just in case.

A few seconds later, she was down the other hall and practically falling down the stairs to the wine cellar in her haste. She was lucky not to stab herself. Unfortunately, that's where her luck ran out. When she reached the grey door at the back of the cellar, she realized she had no plan to get through it. It was solid steel and locked. The only key she knew of was in Arryn's pocket and she was definitely not going back up there. She could practically hear Pillow Dave mocking her lack of a plan in his snide voice.

Every time she'd been in there, two guards kept watch. There was no way to know if Woolly was one of them, but she was out of time. She'd have to take her chances. Beatrix banged the door with her fist, but the tiny clang was barely enough for her to notice and she might need the bones in her hand unbroken once the door opened. The knife handle wasn't much louder. The cellar around her was full of dusty bottles, but she didn't want to do to herself what she'd done to the guard upstairs because she was going to be in a hurry on the way out. Finally, she spotted a small wooden wine rack on the floor. Four of its six slots held bottles. She dumped them on the floor with a clatter, set her knife down and slammed it into the door with a resounding thud.

After the fourth hit, the door flew outward and clipped her wine rack, knocking it out of her hands. A guard she didn't recognize with reddish-brown fur loomed before her, the barrel of his gun looking about the size of a baseball bat. In her wild flight from the bedroom, she hadn't thought about what would happen if Woolly wasn't on guard in the prison. She'd never found out where the guards went when they were off duty and she wasn't likely to make it out of the building alive if she didn't have him with her. She stood there gaping for a terror inducing half-second before lunging toward her knife on the floor. No sooner had she turned back, the guard crumpled to the floor. Woolly stood behind him. The butt of his weapon was still raised from having hit the other guard in the back of the head. He ignored her large knife completely.

"Let's go," he said in a surprisingly soft voice. His eyes no longer shot daggers at her. He wasn't happy to see her, but at least he didn't look like he was going to shoot her. Probably.

"I'm not leaving without my friends," said Beatrix, keenly aware that she had no real means to stop him if he wanted to get by her.

"Fine," said Woolly turning back to the second door that led to the prison cells. "But they would be safer here until we can return for them. They all might die on the way out of this place."

"Then that's a choice they'll have to make for themselves," said Beatrix, certain that none of them would choose to stay behind.

"And if they slow us down, I'll shoot them myself," he rasped.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Her friends were free in a matter of moments. There were a few hushed questions and objections. A glare from both Beatrix and Woolly ended them abruptly. When all was said and done, nobody wanted to stay behind. It didn't take them long to make it out of the house, but it felt like forever with the threat of being discovered looming. There was no telling when the leech would regain consciousness. There were two guards posted at the front door. Beatrix resisted the urge to dive for cover because Woolly didn't hesitate. He simply walked up to them, stood silently for a moment, and they turned and walked away. Before her contact with the Anthrak orb Beatrix wouldn't have been able to believe it. Now she understood that the idea of deception among their own was a foreign concept. Nothing could be hidden long-term because once an individual linked with the Quorum all of their deceitful thoughts would be spread to all the other Anthrak.

In the short term though, it allowed one man to walk up with five prisoners and spout off complete lies without them being questioned. At least that's what Beatrix assumed happened in their silent communication. It wouldn't work for long, but for now it was all they needed.

Woolly led them along the building in a tight group, his gun at the ready, directing them with single words when necessary, but mostly just grunting. His lack of verbal communication and subversive behavior must have been what kept him from being discovered and having his symbiont replaced like Josh, so Beatrix wouldn't complain. She just wished she had some idea what the plan was.

Her mind was on high alert, but that didn't stop her from thinking about what would become of Arryn. He was locked in the grey prison of the Anthrak consciousness. She didn't want to leave him there to suffer. That was no way to repay him for what he'd done. Sadly, she couldn't think of a better solution.

Beatrix padded along behind Woolly, constantly glancing over her shoulder to make sure her friends were behind her. Torch took up the rear, of course, protector that he was. She couldn't stop her thoughts from drifting back to Josh, or rather Arryn. Her mind was still reeling from the effects of the Anthrak orb. Having her mind blend with the Anthrak had been the most oppressive feeling of her life. Even thinking about it made her skin crawl. The Leothen were helpless victims of the Anthrak, just as the Nedrans were, only they couldn't fight for themselves any more.

They passed through a lush garden and looped around a large swimming pool when a ship identical to the one that had brought them there came into view. The house was still easily seen. At least the windows and doors were; the rest blended into the sky around it. They must have taken a circuitous route to avoid patrols. There were two Colarian soldiers standing attention at the foot of the open ramp in the rear, their guns held at an angle in front of them.

Immediately upon stepping into their view, the two soldiers opened fire. "What the hell, Woolly?" shouted Beatrix as they all ducked and ran for shelter behind a small shed next to the pool.

"Someone from the house must have beaten us here," said Woolly, firing a couple of rounds to keep the guards from approaching. "We figured they would take longer to figure out where we were going."

The soldiers continued to lay down fire, peppering the side of the shed with rounds. Woolly fired back at them. When Beatrix took a second to glance around the opposite side of the shed, she saw the soldiers had taken up shelter just inside the aircraft. Nobody was likely to hit anyone from this distance with good cover.

Beatrix walked back over to Woolly and shouted at him between shots. "They're just trying to delay us until backup arrives. They know they only have to keep us off the ship. If we stay here, we're as good as dead or captured."

"Agreed," said Woolly, taking time to really aim a few shots, and catching a load of splinters in his face when a bullet ripped into the shed just above his head. "But we can't just run at them through all of this open space."