Omega Games (12 page)

Slowly, without any conscious intention on my part, my fingers did just that: They curled around the sections and wove them together, in and out of each other, turning all the loose hair into a cable. A brief search turned up some jeweled clips, which I used to secure the cable’s loops to the back of my head.

Not a cable. A braid.

I looked at my image in the reflecting plas above the vanity unit. I had been allowed to keep my long hair among the vral, as they feared me and the effects of my amnesia, but . . . I could not remember learning how to weave it like this.

Iisleg women do not braid their hair. They cannot. They wear it too short.
Dark blue eyes stared back at me, unblinking, unforgiving.
I am not an Iisleg woman.
I reached out to the plas, touching the slick surface with my fingertips. The woman on the other side did

the same, but at the very last moment her hand became a fist and smashed into the plas, punching through it and reaching for my throat— “Cherijo?”

I blinked, and the shattered plas became whole, and the woman inside it became my reflection again. Mercy came to stand behind me. She looked as angry as she had when I’d first arrived. “That stupid mule-headed hermit agreed to a meeting, but he wants to see only you. He’ll allow you to bring a drone escort for protection.”

I noted her white lips and the hands curled tightly against her sides. “Protection from what?”

“Posbret and every other credit-hungry raider on this rock, I suppose.” As she shrugged, her gaze dropped away from mine. “You ready?” I turned my back on the thing in the mirror. “Yes.” Four of Mercy’s drednocs escorted me out of the brothel and through the pressurized access ways that

connected most of the colony. I argued against so many—surely one was more than enough—but she

was adamant. “Drefan is being particularly unfriendly, even for him,” she told me. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but I want you back here as soon as possible. Husband or no husband. Or Cat and I are coming after you.”

I thought the abrupt turnaround in her attitude toward me was rather touching. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay at Drefan’s dome? It would mean less trouble for you.”

“You”—she poked her finger at my sternum— “are still in debt to me. You come back.” I suited up—another precaution that Mercy insisted on—and followed two of the drednocs into the long, transparent corridor of plas leading to Omega Dome. The other two battle drones followed me, the flickering lights from their chassis dancing across the convex interior of the access way.

Mercy had programmed the drones to respond to my inquiries, so I asked, “How long will it take to reach Omega Dome?” “At current speed, one minute, forty-two seconds, ” the drone replied. As it did, the glowing halo of

“What is the significance of your halo colors?”

“This color indicates this unit is in standard operational mode.” The drone’s halo turned purple again. “This color indicates this unit is in battle mode.”

I looked at the other drednocs. All of their halos glowed purple. “Are you expecting a confrontation? ”

“This unit cannot expect,” it told me. “Current operational modes were included in programmed orders to escort Terran female designated Resa to Omega Dome.”

Mercy had put them all in battle mode before we’d left her dome. I needed to discover what my host feared enough to surround me with four drones ready to kill something. “Is there a threat-identification protocol in your current program?”

“Affirmative.”

“Define identification parameters,” I said.

“Pass code required.”

I had no idea what code Mercy had used to safeguard the information, or why she felt a need to do so. “Cancel previous inquiry.”

The drone’s halo turned green for a moment as it processed my request. At the same time, I heard a hissing sound and turned toward the air lock we were passing in time to see a reptilian being launch itself at us.

It hit the drednoc I had been questioning, which fell sideways in front of me, its grapplers slipping on the oily, scaled hide of the attacker. I jumped back, colliding with the drone behind me, and then I was snatched up and held above the fray.

“Put me down,” I ordered. The drone ignored me.

The attacker, a huge Tingalean, punched one of its stunted arms through the fallen drednoc’s armored chassis. Its limb went through the alloy as if it were worn cloth. With a twist it seized and ripped out the drone’s command core. The drednoc instantly shut down and became inert.

The being looked up at me and bared two dagger-long fangs dripping with poison. Its eyes were black and lidless, which made the dark blood rimming them easy to spot. Only a serious head injury caused that sort of bleeding, even in reptilian life-forms.

“I am a healer,” I said in a calm, clear voice. “Stop this and I will help you.”

Purple light filled the access way as the drone holding me wrapped its extensors around me. The other drones converged on the Tingalean from either side, but it slithered out from under them and struck at the tripod of my drone, trying to unbalance it.

“Stand down,” I called out to the drones. “It may be hurt.”

The drednocs did not respond to my command but raised their weapons. Pulse fire struck the reptilian in the back, and it screamed before it reversed itself and darted back into the air lock. The door panels slid shut before the drones could follow. After several fruitless attempts to open the air lock doors by the other drones, the drednoc holding me carefully set me down on my feet.

The drednocs formed a triad around me and their inert comrade. “These units are programmed to protect Terran female Resa,” one of them said.

“You could have defended me without hurting the Tingalean.” I had never seen such a display of hostility, especially from the reptilian. Although their poisons made them some of the deadliest beings in the galaxy, Tingaleans were a notoriously placid, nonaggressive species, who dedicated themselves to remaining as neutral as the Jorenians. “Have there been other attacks like this?”

“Unknown,” one of the drones replied.

“Well, who was it attacking?” I asked. “You, or me?”

“Unknown.”

There were far too many damn unknowns on this planet.

“Signal Mercy,” I told the drednoc who was responding to me. “Relay what happened here.”

“Affirmative,” it said. “Does Terran female Resa wish to return to Mercy House?”

“No.” I stood and went to the air lock, but the door panel remained jammed shut from the inside. “Take me to—”

Something overhead moved, and bright, hot beams of light sliced down from a maintenance hatch, skewering each of the drednocs. Their emitters burst and sparked as they shook, unable to move, impaled by the light.

I looked up, but the intensity of the light made it impossible to see what had pinned the drones. I saw armor begin to liquefy around the beams, and remembered that Trellus had once been used to mine arutanium. I flattened myself back against the access way wall. The only thing that could remove and process the mineral was an arutanium particle laser, which would cut through anything it touched— including me.

Abruptly the powerful mining beams shut off, and all three of the remaining drones went inert and toppled over, spilling pools of steaming fluid from their melted insides. I didn’t wait to see what would come out of the hatch or the air lock, but ran. I was in a section of the access way that offered no exits except to the surface.

It can’t follow me out there.

My weighted envirosuit, which had not been designed for speed of movement, dragged at my limbs. I heard a familiar hissing sound behind me and scanned the sides of the access way. I headed for an outer air lock and hurled myself into it, shutting the doors and securing them as the Tingalean had.

Something threw itself into the panels from the other side, denting the thick plasteel. Then a laser began humming.

The suit’s gloves made my fingers clumsy, but I enabled my suit’s temperature controls and air supply flow, checked my seals, and opened the doors to the surface. Air rushed around me as the Tingalean used the laser to burn through the air lock’s seal, and I silently prayed that no one else had entered the access way.

A hiss came over my suit com, making my blood freeze as I slowly turned and saw the reptilian in its own envirosuit, emerging from the surface air lock and moving more rapidly than I had thought possible. Under its arm it carried what had to be the mining laser.

It had disabled four battle drones. My chances of stopping or eluding it were unlikely. I pressed the com button on my suit control panel, transmitting my audio to any console within range that had an open channel.

“This is Resa,” I said as I kept moving. “Mercy, if you can hear this, the drones you sent with me are all disabled. I’m out on the surface being pursued by the Tingalean who attacked them. It has a mining laser. I don’t think I’m going to reach Omega Dome in time to escape it.”

“Dr. Grey Veil?” an unfamiliar Terran male’s voice asked.

“Yes. Did you hear my last transmission?” I went around the edge of a small crater filled with jagged rock. “My escort was attacked and—”

“You’re alone out there,” he finished for me. “We picked up your com signal. You have to take cover now. That cluster of basalt pillars fifty yards to your right will do. Stay there until the threat is neutralized. ”

I didn’t know how he could see me, but I wouldn’t waste time finding out. I made my way to the pillars and carefully squeezed into a gap between two of them. The surface began to tremble under my heavy soles, and I saw a long, wide shadow stretch out toward the Tingalean.

This drednoc was twice the size of Mercy’s, with a different configuration of extensors and attachments. It looked more like a man—like a mechanical giant of a man—with a larger sensor case, grapplers made to appear like humanoid arms, and two lower appendages that functioned like biped legs. It gave off strange vibrations, and as it passed the pillars, they caused dust from them to slowly rain down on my helmet.

The Tingalean enabled the laser and aimed it at the pillars, completely ignoring the drednoc. The giant came up and snatched the laser out of the lizard being’s hands just as it fired, shifting the beam up into space. The drednoc backhanded the Tingalean, who sailed over the airless surface and landed near the junction of two access ways. It pulled open a hatch and disappeared into it.

“It’s gone,” I said, trying not to hyperventilate as the drednoc lumbered over to the mining laser and picked it up. It switched off the power cells and continued on its way to Omega Dome. “Drefan, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he said as the drednoc disappeared inside the dome. “You should come inside now, Doctor. Enter where you see the red light.”

Just such a light pulsed three times above an air lock, but not the one the drednoc had used. I wriggled out from between the pillars and hurried toward it.

Seven

I expected to be met by another drone, but the being who stepped through the last of the decon chambers was a Chakacat, a feline who walked upright like a person. This one wore an abbreviated leather garment around its hips, and a weapons harness made of four narrow straps wrapped diagonally around its lean torso. I had assumed its species was peaceful, but this one carried power and blade weapons.

I had already met one of its kind on board the
Sunlace
, a former domestic companion named Alunthri. Although that one had been a gentle, intelligent creature who spoke better than some of the Iisleg I had known, it had taken some time for me to becomeaccustomed to the idea of a walking, talking, hermaphroditic feline.

This one had the same silvery pelt and bullet-shaped head as Alunthri, but it was larger, and its muscles more developed. An alien wariness sharpened its clear, colorless eyes as it returned my scrutiny. It also held a weapon trained on me.

“I am Keel, the games master’s assistant,” it told me, showing small, sharp teeth that matched the golden color of its talons. “Were you injured during the attack, Dr. Grey Veil?”

I shook my head as I began stripping out of the suit.

“Answer me with words, if you please.”

It didn’t understand body language? Alunthri had certainly read mine well enough. “I am fine.” I straightened my garments and eyed the weapon it was lowering. “Where is my husband?”