Of Blood and Angels (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter 7

Katie

The light sword landed at my feet,
scattering Akan's guards.  Akan stumbled backward, giving me the chance to
break away from him.  I jabbed my elbow in his ribs and then whipped around and
landed a foot in his solar plexus.  He fell back on the floor and his gun
clattered to the ground as I reached for the light sword. 

It was a lot heavier than I imagined and
it throbbed and hummed in my hands.  I could barely lift it even if I weren't
exhausted from fighting for the last thirty minutes.  I heaved it though, with
both hands clasped around the hilt and I swung it wildly knowing full well that
whatever I hit would be vaporized including my own limbs. 

Akan's guards backed away but Akan
recovered his gun and was pointing it at me.  We stared each other down, he on
the floor with a gun and I above with the light sword too heavy for me to hold
very high or for very long.

Akan said something to me and his lip
curled up. 

I wanted to kill him.  I wanted to punish
him for all the crew and innocent civilians he had killed here today.  I wanted
him to writhe in pain for the years of abuse that he had hurled on my husband. 
I wanted him to suffer for locking a child away in a prison on Andorus.  I was
crazy mad with this.  I didn’t just want to hurt him.  I wanted to execute him,
but I was not a killer.  I couldn’t do this. 

The gun wavered in Akan's hand.  I was
going to die if I didn’t swing this sword and hit him with it first.

“Kill him,” I heard a whisper.

“Kill him, kill him!”  The sound was like
the wind.  Many voices surrounded me, whispered to me, and hissed in my ears. 

I raised my eyes from Akan's and I saw
them.  There were boys, ghostly Karupta boys calling to me.  They were all
bleeding, their long black hair and young faces covered in blood.

“Kill him, kill him,” they chanted.  I
glanced down upon Akan, Prince of Mishnah.  He smiled back at me, challenging
me, daring me to do it.

“It is his time,” a man’s voice said.  I
looked up again and where the boys had been there was now a man, sort of.  He
had long flowing silver hair and was bathed in silver light.  He had wings,
majestic silver wings protruding from his back and rising up behind him like a
great cape.  He was incredibly beautiful and for a moment, I could do nothing
but gaze up at him.

“Kill him, Sister,” he said and his voice
was like honey in my brain. 

The gun wavered in Akan’s hand but the
barrel clicked as it was cocked and I saw as if in slow motion, he pulled the
trigger.  I heard the shot and felt it pierced my arm. 

“Help me,” I cried and the angel-man
placed his arm on mine and together we lifted the light sword.  Then, I drew it
down, slashing Prince Akan, bisecting him from head to groin.  Blood and brain
matter splashed on me.  I screamed and dropped the light sword.  It hissed and
burned the stuff that was splattered on the floor and then it turned itself
off.  My knees gave out from under me and I fell into the hideous mess of what
had been Prince Akan.

“Blessed Sister.”  The angel man held up
his palm and touched me on the forehead.  He disappeared into a mist of silver
light.

“Katie, are you okay?”  It was Jerry
shaking me.  The man was gone.

“My arm,” I gasped.  My hands were covered
in blood.

“I've got her!”  Thad threw a coat around
my shoulders.  I was trembling and Thad held me tightly.  “Jerry, you deal with
Ron.  I'll bring Katie back to the ship.”

“Did you see him?” I asked.

“Who?”

I looked at Thad.  He had a nasty cut on
his forehead and blood was dripping into his eyes.

“Come on,” he said.

“Senya's light sword,” I mumbled, bending
down to get it even though I couldn’t feel my left arm anymore. 

“Let's get out of here,” Thad urged,
pulling me to my feet.  I carried the light sword which I had used to kill
Prince Akan.  It didn’t weigh nearly so much when it was off.  It had a gold
and platinum hilt and the Eagle Crest was engraved on it.

“Come on, Kate,” Thad pulled me.  “You
need to get to sickbay.”  A Mishnese officer approached us.  “Back off!” Thad
yelled but the officer raised his hands to show he was unarmed.  He spoke to me
but the only word I understood was
MaKani
.  Then, he dropped to his
knees and bowed in obeisance.  I looked over his back and watched as all the
other Mishnese in the room did the same.

“Where's Senya?” I asked Thad.

“Jerry just left with him,” Thad
whispered, his eyes wide.

“Well then who are they bowing to?” I
cried.

“You, Katie,” Thad replied.  “You’re going
to be their Queen.”

The Captain strode in just then along with
more security and the Governor of the Spacebase.  The Captain came straight to
me, looking at all the prostrate Rehnorians and then he glanced at the mess on
me and what was the body of Akan.

“You are hurt?” he demanded.

“She was shot in the arm,” Thad replied.

“Get back to the ship and clean up,” he
ordered me.  “Then write up your report.  I want to know exactly what the hell
happened here.”

“Yes, sir,” I said and walked out
clutching Thad.  I was sick in the hallway.  Thad waited patiently while I lost
all my protein bars.

“I'd be sick too except I already
upchucked them on the ride,” he teased lightly.

I could barely stay on my feet after that. 
My arm started burning like never before.

“I've never been shot before,” I told
Thad.  “Senya's been shot so many times.  Akan kept trying to kill him.”

“I know, Princess,” he said, picking me up
and carrying me back to the shuttle.

“It hurts,” I cried.

“We'll be in sickbay in just a few
minutes.  My dad was shot once.  Do you want to hear about it?”

“Okay,” I replied, but I must have passed
out because I didn't remember anything more.

When I woke up, my arm was in a cast and a
SdK monitor was over my head.  Tilia was sitting next to me.

“How do you feel, MaKani?” she whispered.

I sat up and tried get my bearings even
though my head spun.

“Where is Senya?”

“Dr. Jerry said the sickbay is full and
the MaKennah can recover in your cabin.  He sleeps there.”

“Thanks, Tilia.”  I swung my feet to the
floor and stood up.  My arm felt like it was chopped in half even though I
could see my fingers emerging from the cast.

“Hey, where are you going, Commander?”  It
was one of the nurses, Lynne.

“Give me a pain pill and let me get out of
here,” I ordered her.  “You can use this bed for someone else.”  There were
patients sitting along the walls and on portable gurneys.  There were signs on
both surgeries flashing “IN USE”. 

“Put this sling on,” Lynne ordered me back. 
“And here are your meds.  Jerry said to tell you that as soon as Ron can get
up, he needs him here.”

“Okay,” I agreed and then Tilia and I
headed back to my cabin.  Two more Andorians were standing outside, guarding
the door.  They bowed to me in the way the Andorians did, on one knee.

I went in the cabin by myself, leaving
Tilia with her comrades and found Senya asleep on the bed.  There was a note
from Caroline on the portable monitor above the bed.  She told me I needed to
give him a sponge bath because he was still covered in red dirt.  I should let
him sleep until he woke up on his own and not to worry about anything else
because his vitals were sent by telemetry to sickbay and someone was monitoring
them.  I should take my own pain pill every eight hours even if I thought I
didn’t need it.  Lastly, I should send Ron over as soon as he was up because
they were swamped.

There was also a note on my vid screen
that I had been placed on mandatory probation, pending Spaceforce Command
review due to the fact that I killed a foreign national and used an illegal
weapon to do it.  If Spaceforce did not decide in my favor, if they determined
that I used undue force without exhausting all other non-lethal options, I
could be fully court-martialed, reduced in rank, or at a minimum, denied
further rank increases.

The first thing I did was shower for about
an hour using way too much of our precious water.  Fortunately, my cast was
waterproof.  Then I sat down to try to explain to Spaceforce Command how Akan
and his crew came after us and blew apart a Spacebase trying to kidnap my
husband.  I lied and told them I had no idea why they were after us, instead
proposing a theory that because of our wealth from the SdK, they thought they
could garner a large ransom.  I lied again and said that to my knowledge, my
husband had relinquished all ties with Rehnor and his Rehnorian citizenship and
had done nothing to encourage this attack. 

I explained that he was in possession of a
light sword having taken it off of another Rehnorian soldier even though I knew
this one was his.  I admitted that it was I who had killed Prince Akan and I
had done so because he had a gun pointed at me and in fact, shot me. 

I finished my report and reread it about
ten times before I submitted.  If they convicted me, I would quit the force
that day.  I had no choice to do what I did.  I did what needed to be done and
I realized as I thought this that I was sounding exactly like Senya. 

I had another epiphany at that moment. 
Spaceforce was created to protect and defend the Alliance, yet we were not
allowed to discharge our weapons without Command's approval despite how our own
lives might be in danger.  Most of our time was spent filling out paperwork
like this, while pirates and tyrants raced around the galaxy killing and
stealing.  The best we could do to stop them was demand a Vessel Inspection.

I sent my report and turned back to look
at the bed fully expecting Senya to be smiling at my revelation in that
arrogant, supercilious way that he had.  He wasn't though.  He looked dead and
red dirt was all over the sheets. 

At this point, I wet towels, filled a
basin with warm water and soap and washed him off as best as I could with my
one arm.  I couldn't even begin to turn him over to get to his back, so I had
to ask the Andorians outside to come in and help me roll him.  Then Tilia and I
changed the sheets. 

I lay next to him at night feeling the
alternating heat and sweat that emanated off his body and listening to his
labored breathing.  My arm ached and I wasn't comfortable, so I slept very
little.  He wasn't going to die, I assured myself.  I sure didn't like him like
this though.

Chapter 8

Caroline

We were exhausted.  Lynne, Geoffrey and I
were the only nurses and we had worked around the clock for more than three
days.  Every bed was full and any time we released someone, another person
checked in.  Jerry and VJ, who was only a resident, had the surgeries going
constantly too so when Ron finally showed up in sickbay, back with the living,
we all pounced on him.

“You feeling better?” Jerry snapped.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good, get scrubbed.  VJ, you go get some
sleep.  Caroline, that kid in Bed 7 that VJ worked on two days ago is
festering.  Take him into OR 2 and Ron will open him back up and see if VJ left
a piece in there.  Then you can give him all the other surgeries that have been
waiting for the last few days.  That should keep you busy until tomorrow. 
Lynne can take over for you when you get tired, Caroline.”

“I'm tired now,” I said, but I didn’t want
to miss the opportunity to talk to Dr. Ron so I headed for Bed 7.

Jerry turned back to the burn patient he
and Geoffrey were working on.

“Ron, can you do skin grafts?  I've got a
lot of burn work here.”

“Yes,” Ron replied from the sinks.

“Good,” Jerry said.  “I'll start sending
those in when you've finished all the orthopedic.”

“I thought his specialty was neuro and
brain?” Geoffrey asked. 

“In Spaceforce,” Jerry replied.  “Your
specialty is whatever is needed at the moment.”

I wheeled Bed 7 into the OR.  It was a
security man named Jay.  He watched Ron putting on gloves.

“Whoa!” Jay looked at me.  “He's going to
work on my shoulder?”

“Lucky you don't have to pay,” I said. 
“You wouldn't believe what he normally charges.”

“Hey, Doc,” Jay called when Ron came over
and picked off the oozing bandage.

“Can you feel this?” Ron asked.

“No, sir,” Jay replied. 

“You have a piece of metal lodged beneath
your subscapularis muscle.  How did that happen?”

“I was in the stairwell when those
assholes blew it up.  I got hit by some of it.  Took some in my leg too but Dr.
VJ got that part out.  Maybe you can look at that too, make sure he got it
all.  I don't want to have a gimpy leg for the rest of my life.  I need to be
able to run.”

“Sure,” Ron said and waved to me to get
the anesthesia going.

“Hey, Doc?” Jay asked before I put the
mask on his face.  “I saw you throw that light sword.  That was an awesome
throw man and those things are damn heavy.  You ever play football?

“No,” Ron said already picking through the
wound.

“What's your favorite team, Doc?  I'm a
Steeler fan, always have been.”

“Ravens,” Ron replied and even though he
was masked, I could tell he was smiling.  No matter what planet a man is from,
he sure does love his football.

“Baltimore?  No way, man.”

“Not Baltimore,” Ron laughed.  “Mishnah.”

“Don't know that team, Doc.  Are they
good?”

“Terrible, but they probably could beat
your Steelers.”

“Hey, well maybe they can play each other
sometime?  That would be cool.”

“Yes, it would be cool.  I will ask them
to do that.”

“No shit?  What are you like the team
owner or something?”

“I am ‘or something.’”  Dr. Ron indicated
I should put Jay under.

“Awesome throw, dude,” Jay mumbled as he
fell asleep.

Dr. Ron cut open the seam of VJ's
stitches.  He folded back the skin to reveal some ugly puss.  I suctioned it
away and then he cut through the muscle and moved it aside to find a tiny metal
chip.

“I didn't realize you did orthopedic
work,” I commented as he sewed the muscle back together.

He was intent on his tiny little
stitches. 

“I did this exact procedure when I was
fourteen.”

“You're kidding!”

“It was in a meadow and all I had was a
blade and a couple buckets of boiling water.”

“What happened?”

“A boy was hit by a spear and the
spearhead lodged exactly here.”

“Did you know what you were doing?” I
asked as he gently folded the skin back in place on the now clean wound.

“Sort of,” he replied.

“What happened to the boy?”

“He healed fine.  He was killed two years
later.”

“Oh my!” I gasped.  “Who killed him?”

“Akan.”  Dr. Ron finished stitching so I
wiped the wound with antiseptic and bandaged it. 

“Was he that guy?  The one Katie killed?”

Ron nodded and looked at Jay's leg.  “Ay
yah,” he said and stripped off his gloves.  “The leg is fine.  What's next?” 

I don't know how many hours later it was
when we finally finished but it certainly helped to have Ron there.  He worked
quickly and could do anything.  Eventually, everyone was finally treated and
put to bed.

“Who wants something to eat?” Jerry
asked.  He looked exhausted and hadn’t shaved or showered in three or four
days.

“I don't know if I'm more hungry or
tired,” I said.  “But if you want to go down to the pub, I will force myself to
go with you.”

“I am hungry,” Ron replied, stripping off
his scrubs.

“You look hungry,” Jerry agreed.  “When
was the last time you ate?”

“About four weeks ago,” Ron said and Jerry
and I laughed because we thought Ron was joking. 

The three of us went to the pub and Jerry
ordered breakfast and I ordered a burger.  Ron decided he wanted both and
ordered a dozen eggs scrambled and then four burgers.  We also manage to put
away a few pitchers of beer between the three of us.

“You are hungry,” Jerry remarked as if it
weren't obvious.  “So are you going to tell us what happened?”

“Where?” Ron asked between bites.

“Everywhere,” Jerry replied.  “Like what
you were doing almost dead in that mud flat when I just so happened to come
along and save your worthless life.”

Ron smiled a little.  “It is complicated.”

“Okay, how about you tell me why those
assholes chased us all the way to Spacebase 37 and then shot up the base.”

Ron shook his head and grabbed another
burger.  “Jerry, you really don't want to know these things.”

“Ain't it obvious, Jerry?” I asked.  “They
wanted him.  They were trying to kidnap him.  He's worth a lot of money, you
know.”

“They had to kill a bunch of innocent
people to do that?”

“Those Rehnorians are really, really bad
dudes,” I said.

“Not all of them,” Ron replied and took a
gulp of beer.

“How do you know?” Jerry asked, raising
his eyebrows.

“I am Rehnorian.”  Ron finished his
burgers and still looked hungry.

“No!” I gasped.  “So does that mean you're
not really Rozarian?”

“No.”  Ron pushed away his plate so he
could light a cigarette.  Just about then, Katie appeared, and she was pissed.

“Nice of you guys to tell me you were
going to be in the pub.  Thanks for waiting dinner for me too.  It's not like
I'm so busy doing stupid inventory paperwork because Command can't make up
their mind whether or not to court martial me.”

“Whoa!” Jerry cried.  “Caroline, what kind
of drugs do we have Katie on?  We need to cut it back!”

“Here Katie, you can sit here.”  I started
to stand up so she could scoot in next to Ron.

“Stay there, Caroline,” Ron said, pulling
me back down.  “You need to protect me from her.”  So help me, how my heart
raced when he touched my arm.

“Very funny,” Katie snapped.  “Don't think
I wouldn't climb across this table to break your neck if I thought it necessary
and I'm damn close thinking it's necessary!”  She sat down on my other side and
poured herself a beer.  “Bloody fool.”

Ron was smiling into his beer.  His eyes
were bright again behind his dark glasses.

“Why is he a fool?” I asked.

Katie took a drink of her beer.  “Well,
let see,” she said.  “It all started because he had to go be Johnny Appleseed
in the Karupatani Continent and then forgot to… stop it!”  She glared at Ron. 
“So help me…”

“She is really mad at me,” Ron said to
Jerry and took a long drag on his cigarette.

Jerry shrugged.  “She's gets that way. 
I'm actually glad it's your problem not mine.”

Katie's face was bright red and her mouth
was open but nothing was coming out.  She looked from one to the other man like
she wasn’t sure which one she ought to be yelling at.  Then she shut her mouth
and took a long gulp of her beer.  Ron stared at her with this smirking kind of
smile on his face and sucked on his cigarette.  Katie started to fan herself
with the menu.

“Stop it, Senya,” she said quietly,
glaring at him.

“What's the matter?” I asked.  “Is he
giving you hot flashes?”

“He's giving her something,” Jerry mumbled
and his brow furrowed.

“Oh screw it!”  Katie cried and jumping
up, she bolted out of the restaurant.

“Excuse me,” Ron said, and quickly, I
moved out of the way because he was obviously anxious to go after her.

“Must be fun,” I said into my beer.

Jerry made a noise and stared morosely
into his.