No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three (5 page)

“Maybe it’s nothing,” he whispered. Maybe they were thrill seekers, gawkers who’d come to gloat over the relics of the Thallians. Maybe they were looters or salvagers. But if they wanted to steal his family’s belongings, wouldn’t they concentrate on the castle? Why would the cloning facility interest them at all? Why would they trouble to repair the dome?

Despite his attempts at logic, it felt like ice clogged his heart. What if Raena hadn’t destroyed the family’s elderly medical robot? Dr. Poe had cloned generations of Thallians. If he survived, if he could have found any viable DNA, he might have begun the process of bringing the Thallians back from the dead.

It was too soon for clones to have become old enough to cast the shadows Jim could see inside the dome.

Still, someone prowled around his homeworld. Whatever they wanted, it couldn’t be good.

Jim finished making his sandwich. Then he sank onto his bed to choke his dinner down. What was he going to do? He had sworn that he would never, ever go back home. He was out, he was gone, and he didn’t want anyone to ever connect him with the Thallians again.

If he could get a message to Raena Zacari, she would want to investigate. He kept her warning in mind, though. For the first time in his life, Jim loved his situation. He did not want to die.

Someone, he thought. He had to tell someone. Who could he warn without confiding why he monitored the mass murderer’s home? How could he tell anyone without revealing himself as the lunatic’s son?

*   *   *

Outfitted with smoked goggles that cast everything into artificial shades of blue, Raena felt much more comfortable. After all the years she’d spent imprisoned in darkness, her eyes were still sensitive to bright light.

She’d changed into the new swimsuit she’d purchased, then left her clothes and gun in a public locker. When she returned to the beachside table where Haoun ate little crabs by the handful, Mykah and Coni had joined him.

“Do you swim?” Raena asked Coni.

“No, but I drink by the ocean,” the blue-furred girl joked. “When I get wet, I have to keep moving or I sink. Drinking is much less exhausting.”

“That’s often true,” Raena agreed.

Vezali slid toward them. She deftly slipped her tentacles between the stools and other tourists, pulling herself along as smoothly as gliding. “I wouldn’t have recognized you,” she confided to Raena, “without your entourage.” She lifted a tentacle to indicate the goggles.

Raena guessed that was fair enough. Of the whole Dagat people, Raena had only ever seen Vezali, who changed in color from a deep blackish green to fiery orange as emotion took her. Raena couldn’t guess how Vezali’s people told each other apart.

“Mykah, would you keep my translator for me?” Vezali asked.

“Coni will. I’m going in the water, too.”

“You swim?” Raena asked.

“No, I wade. And look at shiny rocks. I never learned to swim.”

Vezali unbuckled the braided gold belt she wore around her midriff and set it on the table amidst the glasses. Raena realized she’d never seen Vezali without it before. She’d also never heard the squid creature’s natural voice. Unlike Haoun’s voice, which spoke a second ahead of his translator, Vezali’s translator provided the only sound Raena had ever heard her make.

Haoun nudged a glass toward Raena.

“What is it?”

“The bartender said it’s a kind of cider.”

“Earther cider?” she asked.

“Be adventurous,” he teased.

“Careful what you wish for,” she told him.

Coni and Mykah traded a glance. Raena almost choked on her first sip. Clearly, the gossip had already started. She should have known there would be no secrets amongst the
Veracity
’s crew.

*   *   *

Mykah let the waves play against his ankles as he gazed out at the horizon. It felt good to be on a planet again, even if the gravity of Lautan was slightly heavier than he preferred and its steamy air less pleasant than Kai’s desert heat. The air smelled alive here. Birds sang in the jungle that surrounded the city. A winged lizard skimmed above the water, fishing.

He felt as if something in his chest unhitched. He’d been wrapped up in producing the Messiah newscast with Mellix for the last month, holed up in a secret studio in the Tohatchi asteroid belt. The pressures had been enormous: to get everything right, to keep Mellix hidden as they researched, to represent humanity as the victims in the Messiah puzzle.

And to heal. Mykah had been shot by the Outrider androids. Luckily, the torso shield Raena insisted he wear caught most of the bolt, or he would most surely be dead. As it was, he hadn’t sealed the shield exactly right and some of the energy seeped through the seam. He’d broken his pelvis and gotten a really impressive scar.

The bone hadn’t been bad to heal. Kavanaugh had gotten him immobilized and packed off to the hospital immediately after Raena put the androids out of commission. Mykah chose to keep the scar, though. It branched across his stomach and onto his chest, white against his dark skin. Its surface was still ultra-sensitive. In fact, he could feel the sun’s heat on it now. Belong long, he’d need to join Coni under an umbrella.

He looked out over the steely water for Raena. Her small head with its cap of completely black hair bobbed a hundred meters out, where she was playing with Vezali and Haoun. Vezali picked Raena up with one tentacle, lifted her from the water, and Raena somersaulted back down. He couldn’t hear her laughter from this distance, but he could see it.

He turned back to the horizon. Unless one of the
Veracity
’s crew won big at gambling while on Lautan, Mykah figured they could afford a week on the ground. After that, they would need to look for work.

He wasn’t sure what should be next for the
Veracity
. Mellix had encouraged him to follow up Raena’s interest in the Viridian slave trade, but that problem was so huge, so diffuse, that Mykah couldn’t imagine where to start.

Behind him, someone called, “Hey! Aren’t you the guy on the news yesterday?”

Pleased to be recognized, Mykah turned, only to find himself partly surrounded by a half-dozen or so large Walosi. The toad-mouthed people did not look like fans.

“You a friend of Mellix’s?” one of them demanded.

Mykah wasn’t going to lie about that. “Yes.”

He saw the first punch coming and dodged, but they had formed a semicircle around him and he couldn’t get back to the beach. Raena would go over the top of them, probably with some kind of crazy scissor kick, but the stones under Mykah’s feet shifted uncertainly. He backed up a step into the water.

“Come on, human,” one of them taunted. “Isn’t your kind always up for a fight?”

Mykah didn’t answer. You would think in twenty-four years of being harassed for being human he would have come up with something to say at times like these, but every clever thing he’d ever said had only made his attackers more determined. It never defused the violence.

“Mellix,” another muttered. “We ought to make him tell us where the goddamned rodent is hiding. We could sell that information. I got kids to feed.”

“Yeah, you said,” another growled, shoving the angry dad forward. Mykah danced back even farther. The water lapped up over his hips.

The others advanced. They didn’t even have to hit him, Mykah realized. They just had to back him up into deep enough water. He had no chance to swim away from them.

One of the thugs dropped with a splash. He lay unmoving on his back in the water. Another screamed and clutched his face.

Something grabbed Mykah’s thigh and yanked his legs out from under him. He fell forward onto his face. Before he could panic, a number of tentacles hauled him away from the fight. One tentacle encircled his forehead and pulled his head above the water.

Vezali blinked at him. Mykah spluttered, “Thank you,” but knew she couldn’t understand him. Her translator was back at the table with Coni.

Raena walked out of the water with a handful of stones. One of the thugs dared to laugh at her. She whipped a stone sideways and it struck him in the throat, shutting off his laughter with a yelp.

The remaining four rushed her. Raena flung the handful of stones into the first one’s face, then vaulted over him as he fell. She avoided the whole slippery footing issue by not letting her feet touch the ground. She stood on the fallen to kick the attackers, leapt over the falling to move on to the ones hanging back.

A camera drone buzzed overhead, recording the fight.

After Raena had dealt with the Walosi, she scooped up another handful of rocks. Mykah saw her taking aim at the drones. “No!” he shouted, just in time.

Raena twisted toward him, puzzled.

Vezali propelled him closer with such a smooth motion that it felt like flying through the water. “Don’t take the cameras down,” he panted. “So far we haven’t broken any laws, but if we damage property belonging to Planetary Security . . .”

Raena dropped the rocks. She skipped toward him through the surf. “You okay?”

“Thanks to Vezali.”

At the sound of her name, the Dagat rose from the water behind him, striding forward on her tentacles.

“Where’s Haoun?” Mykah asked.

“I sent him to get help.” Raena nodded toward the beach, where Security had corralled the one Walosi who’d gotten away. Haoun stood beside Coni. Vezali’s golden translator glinted in her hand.

Raena grabbed hold of two of the fallen Walosi and started dragging them back to shore. Vezali grabbed three more. That left one for Mykah to manage.

“I can’t believe you took them out barefoot and in a swimsuit,” Mykah said.

“The footing had them off balance,” she said. “And I was armed.”

“With rocks,” he pointed out.

“They didn’t expect it.”

As soon as Mykah’s feet cleared the water, Coni clutched him in a hug so emotional it nearly knocked him over. “I was so worried,” she said.

Mykah laughed and hugged her back. “I was worried, too, but I shouldn’t have been.”

He extricated himself from her arms and went to speak to the Planetary Security detail. The smoked face-shields of their helmets turned his way as he came nearer. “I’m Mykah Chen, captain of the
Veracity
,” he said. “These are my crew. Are we in trouble?”

“We’re reviewing the security video, Captain Chen. Please stand by.”

The pause went on long enough that Mykah began to be concerned. He looked back at his crewmates. Coni talked to Vezali, who’d put her translator back around her midriff. Raena leaned against Haoun, who had curled up to drowse in the sun.

Mykah noticed that Raena’s swimsuit looked like an opaque violet leotard. It covered her completely from the base of her throat to her muscular thighs. The worst of her scars were all hidden.

She had her arms folded around her waist, the picture of nonchalance. As she watched the Security agents, her face remained impassive behind the gargoyle shades. If you ignored the way muscles corded her arms—and you hadn’t just seen her take down six guys twice her size with a handful of beach stones—she looked like someone’s kid sister.

“Captain Chen, we’ve reviewed the security recordings. You were clearly not the aggressor. You are free to go.”

“And my crew as well?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Raena nudged Haoun as she got to her feet. He opened one eye, then heaved himself up onto all fours. “What was that all about?” he asked, when Mykah got near enough.

“The Walosi recognized me from the newscast,” Mykah said. “I’m guessing that they’re out of work because of the tesseract flaw. They blame Mellix. And they didn’t seem to care for humans very much.”

“Even humans have rights,” Raena muttered, the punchline to a joke that had been circulating—and mutating—since the War.

“Exactly,” Mykah said. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

“Any time.” Raena nodded back toward town. “I saw a nabe place down the beach. Anyone else hungry?”

“I’m going to sleep through dinner,” Haoun warned. “There’s too much excitement for me here.”

CHAPTER 3

A
riel heard someone crying in her office. The sound was awful, shredding a human voice almost past enduring. Unable to recognize who could be making those noises, Ariel leaned into a sprint.

The last thing she expected to see was Eilif sitting at her desk, bent double with sobbing.

Ariel knelt in front of the little woman and tried to pull her hands away from her face. Eilif shook her head and wouldn’t let go.

“What’s wrong?” Ariel asked gently. In many ways, Eilif remained half-feral, too traumatized to interact with the ugliness in the galaxy.

“He’s alive,” Eilif whispered. Terror made her voice unfamiliar.

Ariel’s core temperature plummeted. She also had been tortured by Eilif’s husband. No matter what she did to blot out the memory, her body would never forget.

Ariel forced the words past her numb lips: “He can’t be. You saw his body burn.”

More than that, Raena had
promised
her. Raena said that she and Eilif stood shoulder to shoulder and set Thallian on fire. Raena said she had pulverized his bones and scattered his ashes and burned the castle down around his ghost.