Of Blood and Angels (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 3) (4 page)

I helped Senya up to a sitting position. 
He leaned forward and pressed his thumbs into his closed eyes

“You weren't kidding about the weather.” 
Katie knelt down beside him.  “Migraine?”

"Kari-fa,” he nodded.  “I waited too
long.”

“Did we do the right thing?” she asked.

“Ay yah.  I did not kill anybody, did I?”

“I don't think so,” I replied, glancing
around the mall.  Nobody was screaming or calling for medics.

Katie put her hands on his face.  “You
might have frightened some people to death but it doesn’t look like anyone was
zapped by lightning or carried off by the tornado.  Are you going to be okay,
Baby?”

He nodded.  “In a moment.”  He took a
couple of deep breaths and started to stand up.

“Infidel!” someone screamed.  We all
turned around and looked at the Rozarian man storming up to us, madly
gesturing.  “You are the Infidel reborn, Sehron de Kudisha, and your presence
on this Rozari is a crime against the goodly people of the Saint.  Never had
there been storms on Rozari until you arrived in our midst.  Your presence
angers the Saint.”

“Dr. Markoff?” Gina shouted.  “What do you
think you are doing here?”

“I was shopping until the terrible perils
of a storm descended upon us.  Now I am declaring for all to hear that this
man, Sehron de Kudisha is a criminal and an abomination.  He should be arrested
and banished from this Rozari for all time.  He is an evil presence on our
planet and he like his ancestors will be the death of Rozari and we must get
rid of him now!”  Markoff raised his arms and spun about in a circle,
announcing this to the crowd that was beginning to gather around us.  Markoff
was further encouraged by this and began to shout even louder.  “Do you know
whom this man is?  He is the son of Karukan the Infidel, the one who turned this
planet into the radioactive desert wasteland it is today.”  A couple of
security men wandered over and look at the pool of blood on the concrete
floor.  “Arrest him,” Markoff hollered.  "Take him before the Rozarian
council and they will banish him back to the heathen planet he has come from.”

“Ach, fuck off, Markoff,” Senya said,
rubbing his temples.  “Shut up before I hurt you.”

“What happened here?” one of the security
men asked.

“A medical emergency,” Gina replied,
taking out her ID.  “Everything is alright now.”

“He threatened me,” Markoff shouted at the
security men.  “He threatens all of us goodly and Saintly people.”

“Are you hurt, sir?” the other security
man asked Markoff.

“We are all hurt.  Rozari is hurt and he
means to harm us more.”  Markoff gestured wildly.

“Markoff,” Senya sighed and raised his
good arm, pointing a finger.

“No, you don't!”  Katie grabbed Senya’s
hand and pulled it back down.  “You've done enough damage here already.”

“She's right, Ron,” Thad agreed.  “It’s
probably not a good idea to send Markoff flying around the mall even if he is
crazy.”

“Son of the Devil, Infidel Karukan,”
Markoff shouted, waving his arms to the crowd.

“Yes, but he's also the son of the Saint,”
Luci piped up all of a sudden, emerging from the doorway she had been hiding
in.

Markoff looked at my wife with surprise as
she stormed right up into his face.

“I am a goodly and Saintly person too,”
she declared, fists planted in her hips as she did when she got angry.  “And I
can tell you that in fact, Sehron de Kudisha is also directly descended from
the Blessed Saint, Markiis Kalila through his son Mishka Kalila who settled our
Rehnor.  In fact, his mother's name was Lydia Kalila and she was a goodly and
Saintly woman too, Saint rest her beloved soul.  So there you are.”

“But,” Markoff protested, obviously
confused by this new information.

“But what?” Luci retorted, her face as red
as her wild hair.  “I can't see where he has done anything to harm this poor
planet.  In fact, as far as I can tell, he's done quite a lot to make it
better.  Much better than you Rozarians have done in the last thousand years. 
How many nice lakes and forests have you got outside of Kalika-hahr and
Takira-hahr that Dr. de Kudisha didn't reclaim all by himself?  How many people
is Dr. de Kudisha employing right now?”

“Of course he's harmed this planet.  Did
you not just see that tornado?” Markoff demanded, pointing at the now calm sky.

“Nobody was hurt by it,” Luci declared. 
“If you had gone through all the terrible things that he has gone through and
had this powerful force within you that sometimes just pops out, you'd be lucky
to control a tornado too.”

Markoff scratched his beard and looked
terribly confused.  “Beg pardon?”

“Maybe you're just jealous because he
hasn't given you a job?”  Luci suggested.  “Is that it?”

“I don't need a job from him,” Markoff
replied haughtily.  “I am the head of the Neurology department at the Rozarian
Science Institute.”

“Oh I see,” Luci replied doubtfully.

“I'm not jealous,” Markoff stated, his
face turning purple.  He stomped a foot.  The crowd and the security men lost
interest and drifted off.

“Who is this guy?” Katie asked.

“He's the surgeon who was just about to
drill a hole in your head when Ron stopped him a few years ago,” Gina
whispered. 

“Let's go get some dessert,” Thad
suggested.  “Anybody want cheesecake?”

“I think, Dr. Markoff,” Luci concluded. 
“That you are in need of some medication.  You have an irrational dislike for
Dr. de Kudisha that can only be attributed to a medical condition.  If you
like, I'm sure Thad will arrange for you to see one of our psychiatrists
tomorrow for an evaluation.”

“Well,” Dr. Markoff exclaimed.  “I have
never been so insulted in my life.”  Quickly, he turned around and practically
ran across the mall.  We all watched him go.

“Wow!” Katie said.  “You were something,
Luci.”

“Well, I…” she blushed furiously.

“Damn, I could use you on my ship!”

“Oh no, not on your ship, Madame,” Luci
pleaded.  “I wish to work in your household.”

“My what?”

“Luci,” Senya said and as red as Luci was
a moment earlier, now she had gone pale.  She looked at Senya and dropped to
her knees in obeisance.

“Thank you, Luci.” he said and waved his
hand.  The pavement upon which Luci knelt was stained with Senya's blood and
began to crack.  Green stalks emerged from the cracks, surrounding Luci.

“What's going on?” Gina asked.

The stalks sprouted leaves and then burst
into flowers.

“Poppies!” Luci cried.  “Red poppies!”

“And asters and cosmos and look at those zinnias,”
Katie pointed.  We were surrounded by flowers in a thousand different colors. 
“Very pretty.  You must rate really high, Luci.”

“This is for me?” Luci gasped.

“What the heck is going on?” Gina demanded
loudly.  “Where did these flowers come from?”

“You know, I'm really hungry for some
cheesecake.”  Thad stretched and put his arm around Gina.  “How about you,
Hon?”

Gina looked at Thad as if he was insane
and backed away from his embrace.

“Cheesecake sounds good to me,” Katie
replied loudly.

“It's amazing how things grow in radioactive
dirt,” Thad smiled.

“But… I don't get it…” Gina protested.

“Let's go back to our house and sit on the
deck,” Katie announced.  “Have coffee and cheesecake.  I think I've got one in
the freezer.  Would that be okay, Sweetheart?”

“Okay,” Senya shrugged, taking Katie's
hand.

“We'll see you in a bit then.”  She waved
at us as they walked away. 

“Awesome!” Thad cried.  “Put on some
tunes, lie on the deck and look at the stars, go skinny dipping in the ocean.”

“Sorry, Thad,” I said.  “Nobody wants to
see you naked.”

“Ok,” Thad took Gina's arm.  “How about
just the girls go skinny dipping then.”

“I just don't get it,” Gina said as they
left for their speeder.

“Oh, Berkie,” Luci exclaimed, picking an
armful flowers.  “I can't believe what happened tonight.”

“Which part of tonight?” I asked as we
walked to our own speeder, a loaner from the SdK fleet.

“Everything!” she gasped.  “I can't
believe I finally met him!  He's amazing!  I had no idea that he was so shy
though.”

“Shy, Senya?”

“Absolutely,” Luci declared.  “You
probably don't realize it because you've known him for so long but I saw it
right away.  I'm quite a good observer.”

“I know you are.”

“He's very insecure.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.  If you didn’t know any
better, you would think he was arrogant but it’s really that he has low
self-esteem.  You would too, Berkie if your entire life someone was constantly
threatening you and telling you how evil you are.  Did you see how he clings to
her?”

“He had to,” I replied, starting up the
speeder.  “He wasn't wearing his glasses and she is trying to get him to stay
out of our heads.”

“What does that mean?”  Luci looked at me
strangely.  I pulled out of the underground parking garage and pointed the
speeder into the evening sky which was an interesting shade of purple.  The
Rozarian moon shone nearly as bright as the Rozarian star did during the day. 

“It means, she's trying to get him to give
up that nasty habit of reading our minds so he can see.  If he's not going to
wear his sensory lenses, then he has to hang on to her.  Right?”

“He can't see?” Luci gasped.

“You didn't know that?  Oh,” I realized. 
“I guess that isn't public information.”

“Blessed Saint,” she breathed as we come
upon the estate and I entered the code to release the security shield.  We
parked outside next to Thad's jaguar.  Luci didn’t move.

“What?” I asked, climbing out of my seat. 
“Aren't you coming?”

“Blessed Saint, Berkie,” she gazed at me
with her big green eyes.  “What is he?  He can't be mortal!”

“Come on, Luci,” I said and headed toward
the house.  “Just act like he's normal.  He’s just one of our friends.”

Chapter 4

Caroline

I joined Spaceforce because they paid my
tuition through nursing school.  I was right smack in the middle of fourteen
kids, number seven, and there was hardly enough money to eat let alone go to
college.  Don't ask me why my parents were breeding like rabbits in that day
and age but they did, and I was ever so happy to get out of that house and
share a room with two other girls instead of eight.

After graduation, I was assigned to the SS
Discovery.  I wasn't all that excited to be in space.  I was actually hoping to
get a position at a land-based VA hospital but space was where I was needed so
off I went. 

My doctor was Jerry Waldman who was cute
as a bug's ear.  He was about the same height as me with curly brown hair and
big old glasses that made his wide brown eyes seem enormous. 

Our sickbay was relatively quiet, most
everything we saw was space sickness or flu.  I had a lot of time to browse the
internet and ready cheesy romance novels which were about the only kind of book
that I could manage to finish.  I swallowed them like water.

Within two weeks of boarding the
Discovery, I developed space sickness myself which was pretty lame considering
I was there to take care of the people who got it.  I had no idea how quickly
it would set in and how nasty it was.  For about three weeks, there wasn't
anything I could do but lie around and let the machines massage my muscles
while I read my books.  Jerry tried to keep me entertained in his free time but
without a nurse, he ended up doing just about everything while I watched
helplessly. 

During that time period, a new ensign came
into our sickbay and announced she was there to inventory.  Her name was Katie
Golden and she too was as cute as a bug's ear.  She had curly blonde hair and
deep blue eyes and was about half a head shorter than Dr. Jerry.  Well even I
could see from my perch in bed that Dr. Jerry fell head over heels, hopelessly
in love with her.  He got all flustered and his face turned bright red anytime
she spoke to him.  He followed her around and dashed frantically whenever she
questioned where something was.

“He's stuck on you like a junebug on a
sow's ear,” I said to her one afternoon when Jerry rushed off to the store room
to find a missing caliper.

“That's silly,” she replied when she had
finished counting thermometers.  “I'm Katie Golden, by the way.  How much
longer are you stuck in bed?”

“Probably another two weeks,” I said. 
“I'm Caroline Adamson.  How long you been aboard?”

“About two months.”  She sat down next to
my bed.  “I didn't get space sickness though.”

“You work out every day?”

“Yeah,” she replied and brushed some of
her curls out of her eyes.  “I decided to do mixed martial arts.  I have always
wanted to have a black belt.”

“I got about four black belts in my closet
but I don't think any of them would fit your tiny little waist.”

She blushed all over just like Dr. Jerry. 
What a cute little couple they would make.

After Katie finished the inventory and
moved on to another area, she still came by to visit me while I remained in
bed.  Poor old Jerry thought she was coming to visit him.

“You like him?”  I'd ask as soon as he got
busy and stopped listening to our conversation.

“He's a nice guy,” she replied.  “But I'm
not interested in him if that's what you're asking.”

“You got another boyfriend?”

“No…well…”

“Well?”

She blushed.

“You do!” I exclaimed.  “You got yourself
some little honeypot lover back home?”

“Well…not exactly…”

That's about all I could ever get out of
her.  We became fine friends anyway and just about every time we had a few
hours shore leave, Katie and I would head out to the base and grab lunch and do
a bit of shopping.  Jerry often tagged along and sometimes, I had a guy of my
own to balance all wheels on our little wagon.

Over the next few years, Katie rose
through the ranks of command just about faster than anyone could possibly
rise.  She even won herself a medal for saving the ship after some darn thing
on the engineering deck caught on fire and nearly blew up.  Katie happened to
be in the right place at the right time to hotwire the fire extinguishing
system but took a nasty blow to the head for doing it.  Next thing you know,
we're down on Rozari waiting for her to come out of surgery and Jerry was
confessing all of his unrequited emotions to me.  I was rolling my eyes and
thinking this boy has got it bad and that wasn’t good because it turned out,
the Rozarian doctor had got it worse and Jerry didn’t stand a chance.

Now if I were just anybody, I'd have been
plenty jealous of Katie.  Like I said, bad enough she is super Spaceforce girl,
but somehow she roped in the guy that left the rest of us standing with our
tongues hanging out.  I don't need to tell you how good Dr. Ron looked or how
rich he was because none of that really mattered.  What mattered was the way he
stared at her whenever she was in the room.  He didn't stare with his eyes of
course.  No matter what he was doing, no matter who he was talking to, Katie came
along and that's where his attention went.  He focused on her like a little old
puppy dog waiting for her to throw him a bone.  Lordy, I wish someone had loved
me like that.

Katie came back to space sporting a new
stripe on her sleeve, a huge rock on her finger and a new last name but if
anybody thought she was going to go easy on them because of that, they were
wrong.  Katie had zero tolerance for screw ups and anyone working under her
command had to be on the top of their game.

On the plus side though, Dr. Ron came
aboard our ship fairly often.  He had bucket loads of money and flying off for
a day or two to whatever Spacebase we happened to be fueling or stocking at was
nothing to him.  He'd come aboard with the rest of our supplies and because
Katie was obsessive about her duty time, he would often have plenty of extra
time to hang around sickbay checking out all his wonderful equipment. 

Jerry and I had loads of advice on how to
change this or reprogram that and often he would sit right there and rebuild a
tool or reprogram a device just to see if we would like it better this way or
that.  If we were really in a jam, patient-wise I mean, he would help out even
though he wasn't licensed for deep space.  He and Jerry came to an
understanding of sorts and while I wouldn't call them friends, I could say they
worked as amiable colleagues sometimes.  Other times, well, if I could hide
under a gurney or in the closet I certainly would have. 

As for me, I loved every minute in Ron's
presence.  He was like this giant truffle or chocolate cake and I was happy
just to stand there staring at him and drooling.  If I couldn't touch and there
was no way I could, I was content just to see him and smell him.  I didn’t know
if he ever realized how I felt.  I think he did because for a while there,
whenever he came aboard, he brought me a box of truffles or a piece of
chocolate cake.  To Jerry he brought a new caliper or microdevice or the latest
SdK unreleased gadget of the week.  And to Katie, he brought roses, dozens and
dozens of white roses.

Jerry, Geoffrey, Lynne and I were heading
to the pub for dinner, passing the windows along the observation deck.  We had
finished unpacking all the new boxes of supplies and Geoffrey had restocked the
storage room.  We had only one patient in the bay at that moment and VJ was
watching him.

“Oh, let's watch for a minute,” Lynne said
as we pulled away from the Spacebase.  She had only been on board for one
cruise and was still excited to see things like this.  “It's so beautiful, all those
lights blinking at us as we drift away.”

“As we sail away,” Jerry sang off key. 
“Through the shining sea…”

“Please, Jerry,” I moaned as Katie's voice
came over the com system.

“Attention all hands,” she announced.  “In
approximately twenty minutes at 1830, the ship's security personnel will be
performing a lock down drill.  This drill is only for security personnel; all
other crew and passengers may continue their normal activities.  The drill will
begin at 1830 with three long blasts on the ship's alarm system.  The drill
will cease at approximately 1840 with three short blasts on the ship's alarm
system.  Please stay clear of all lock down doorways during this drill.  Bridge
out.”

“We better get over to the pub before they
lock us in here,” Jerry said. 

“Heaven forbid we have to stand here for
an extra ten minutes without a drink in our hands,” I replied.

“Where are we heading to anyway?” Geoffrey
asked.

“The pub on deck 18,” Jerry reiterated.

“No, I mean the ship.”

“Who knows?” I shrugged.  “This sector or
that sector.  This base or that planet.  What difference does it make?  They
all look the same.”

“Do we ever have any excitement on these
cruises?” Geoffrey asked as we headed toward the lift.  It was his second
cruise too.  “Or are they all as boring as the last one?”

“You should hope you get no excitement,”
Jerry lectured.  “Excitement for us means sick and dying people.”

“Or gun fights or damage to the ship,” I
added.  “Like the time Katie was kidnapped by the Rehnorians.”

“Or the time the engineering console fell
on her head and half of the engineering deck was destroyed,” Jerry nodded.

“Do you ever have any excitement on this
ship that doesn't involve Cmdr. Katie?” Geoffrey smirked.

Jerry and I looked at each other.

“Nope.”

About this time, we walked into the pub. 
I scanned the place for a booth and spied Dr. Ron sitting all by himself,
typing away on his netbook with a beer and a lit cigarette beside him.  Two of
the barmaids were standing next to his table, probably trying to chat him up.

“Look Jerry,” I pointed, “did you know he
was aboard?”

“I didn't,” Jerry frowned.  “Nice of him
to check in with us.”  Jerry strode over to Ron’s table and waved the girls
off, sitting down instead.  The rest of us followed.

Ron looked up at us with a blank expression.

“You busy?”  Jerry asked and waved for a
barmaid to bring him a beer.

“Yes,” Ron replied.  “Quite.”

“When did y’all get aboard?”  I sat down
in the booth next him while Geoffrey and Lynne tried to scoot in by Jerry.

Dr. Ron turned back to his netbook without
answering me.

“Busy means he doesn't have time to talk
to us, I guess,” Jerry said a little snippily.  “Must be tough having to run
such a big company and be the galaxy's best brain surgeon, all at the same
time.”

“Why don't I go find us another table,” I
suggested.  “Obviously Dr. Ron doesn't want any company right now.  You don't
have any idea what he's working on Jerry, so don't you go trying to pass
judgment.”

“I'm not passing any judgments,” Jerry
replied, taking a long gulp on his bottle of beer.  He waved for the girl to
bring him another.  “I'm just saying, I don't know what the hell he's doing
here if he's so busy.  Don't you have an office of your own that you could be
working in that's more convenient than here?”

“Well maybe he just wants to have a visit
with his wife at the same time,” I cried.  “Jerry you sound to me like you've
had one too many drinks and as far as I can tell you've only had just one.”

“Would you please take your conversation
elsewhere,” Dr. Ron said and flicked at us with his fingers.

“Sure, okay, Ron.”  Jerry stood up. 
“Sorry to be bothering you.  Hey Caroline, did I ever tell you how I found out
about him?”  He pointed his thumb at Ron.  I rolled my eyes.  I had already
heard this.

“How?” Lynne asked with excitement on
account of she never heard this before.

“Well,” Jerry said, drawing it out. 
“Katie sent me a text.  Sorry Jerry, I can't marry you.  I'm already married to
Ron.”

“Jerry!” I scolded when all of a sudden
there was a horrific thumping noise and the ship lurched to the side.

“What the hell was that?”  Geoffrey and
Lynne bolted to their feet and grabbed each other.

“Did we hit something?” Lynne cried as the
alarm claxon started to make a whole bunch of noise.  A voice announced that
fire and damage assessment teams needed to go the starboard propulsion center
on Deck 17.  Jerry and I looked at each other and tried to decide if we ought
to panic or not.  Katie's voice came over the com.

“Attention all hands.”  She sounded very
calm, so Jerry drank the rest of his beer and I had a sip of the Strawberry
Daiquiri that had arrived in the meantime.  The music in the pub stopped as
Katie continued speaking.  “One of the hazards of space travel at post light
speeds is on occasion, we find ourselves passing through an asteroid field. 
Unfortunately, this time we managed to hit a few of those asteroids and as a
result, we have lost our starboard propulsion system.  We are currently
evaluating the damage and I will update you as soon as we have an idea what we
are dealing with.  All hands on duty, please stay at your duty stations until
otherwise notified.  All hands off duty, please stay at your call stations
until otherwise notified.  All passengers and non-crew personnel please return
to your cabins until otherwise notified.  The security drill has been
cancelled.  Bridge out.”