Rystani Warrior 04 - The Quest (26 page)
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Authors: Susan Kearney
Angel’s hand was already on the blaster. She drew her weapon and started shooting. Expert shots took out two Kraj before they hit the deck.
The Numan captain looked shocked, but she pulled her weapon and fired at the Kraj alongside Angel. So they hadn’t been betrayed. The Kraj had sneaked aboard.
Even as he analyzed, Kirek stuffed the reader inside his suit and drew his own weapon. Before he could shoot, three Kraj locked their sights on him. Fired. Beams of radiant red light caught Kirek in their direct path and knocked him to his knees. Worse, the light slammed his psi, and pain erupted in every nerve ending.
He couldn’t move. Or draw breath. Or gasp out one word. It felt as if the red light had gathered up his psi and seared it with fire. Kirek hadn’t known a being could withstand such agonizing pain and remain conscious.
Agony wracked him as the fight around him continued. The Numan captain was down, along with both officers. While the three Kraj held him tight in the deadly red beams, another had Angel pinned behind the shuttle where she’d dived to take cover.
With Angel unable to change position, the three Kraj holding him in the scorching red lights advanced. The light became more focused and burned so hot he was certain his skin would char.
Angel peered at him from behind the shuttle but kept firing at the Kraj. “Kirek, I’ll cover you. Get over here.”
Kirek couldn’t so much as turn his head. His flesh felt as if the sun itself consumed him from the inside out. His brain pulsated with cramps and wave after wave of nausea left him too incapacitated to move.
Kirek wanted to tell her to flee before the Kraj turned the red weapon on her. But the scream stuck in his lungs. Stars. Agony twisted his limbs, and he tumbled, slammed into the ground, too weak to even put out a hand out to prevent his head from slamming into the deck.
With relentless precision, the Kraj advanced. One of them lifted a blaster to finish Kirek. Angel fired, and the Kraj crashed to the deck.
Twisted in pain, Kirek saw Angel lunge toward him at the speed of thought. He shouted, “Don’t.”
But the red light caught her. Agonizing pain clawed at him. The excruciating red light hit Angel, too. Yet she landed on her feet and didn’t so much as whimper. Sparking, crackling silver light bounced and popped off her, light so bright it hurt his eyes. Fear gnawed at him that she was about to be consumed in the paralyzing, punishing pain and he couldn’t move to help her.
Then his suit’s filters adjusted, and a silver spherical ball of light popped into place around Angel. Around him. Was this the Kraj’s diabolical plan to kill them both?
Wrong. Wrong. He was missing something critical.
The silver sphere wasn’t another Kraj weapon. It was a shield—a shield that Angel had somehow constructed with her psi. The intensity of his pain lessened, but his nerves still twitched with the aftereffects.
Angel shot the last two Kraj. The red beams of their weapons disappeared, and Angel kneeled beside him. “Kirek?”
Pain still held him in its clutches. “Hurt.”
“I’ll take you back to our new medical bay. Just hold on.”
ANGEL HAD USED null grav to carry Kirek and one of the the red-beaming weapons back to the shuttle. She figured they needed to know how it worked so they could counter it next time. With Kirek unconscious in the new medical bay, all beeping machines and ticking sounds that she didn’t understand, she paced, stopped, then started.
“Ranth, what’s his prognosis?”
“The damage to his nervous system is extensive.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I’m attempting to do so, but I can give no guarantees how the nerve grafts will take.”
She swallowed hard and forced words past her despair. “Will he live?”
“I’m uncertain. The same as the last time you asked.” Ranth paused. “I will inform you the moment there’s any change.”
Angel went back to pacing. Frie had used the reader on the disk, and they now had the coordinates of the world on the rim that possessed the portal. Even as Kirek remained unconscious, she’d jumped the
Raven
into hyperspace, hoping that by the time they arrived at the portal, Kirek would have recovered.
Now she had nothing to do but worry. Nothing left to do except wonder why she wanted to cry—every time she looked at Kirek. Somehow, she’d managed to ignore her feelings for him when he’d been healthy. But now that he might die, she was so upset that she’d only spent a few minutes on the bridge in the last six days.
She couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t hungry. She had to force herself to take in liquids. The consuming worry wasn’t because without Kirek, the mission couldn’t succeed. Her concern was personal. If he died on her … Stars.
When had he become more than the fling she’d wanted? When had he become more to her than someone she could easily walk away from? Was it the first time he’d smiled at her or teased her or made love to her? She didn’t know.
Just seeing him lying in that chamber, with nanoprobes going into and out his nose and throat, made her nauseated. The thought of him never again waking up, of him never again teasing her, of him never again making her angry or making love to her was forcing her to realize how much she cared about him.
She should have engaged the psi shield earlier. The Kraj had had him in the red beams for almost a minute. A few seconds longer and not even the medical equipment would have had a chance to save him. But, since Angel had never before activated a psi shield and didn’t know exactly how she’d engaged it, she was lucky to have done so at all. She’d been so upset. Kirek’s face had been twisted into a horrific mask of agony. She’d just wanted to help him, and then the shield had been there.
She didn’t understand what had happened. The one person who might be able to explain it to her was beside her in the medical bay—unconscious.
“Ranth?” she called the computer.
“Yes?”
Kirek looked pale and much too large for the medical bed. She’d give anything for him to be back on his feet. “Surely there is something else you can try?”
“There isn’t.”
“Perhaps a doctor, a specialist we can consult?”
“My medical library is the most extensive in the Federation. If there is a better way, it’s not known by—”
“Ranth.” Angel stopped pacing. “Kirek just moved his hand.”
“It’s a reflex.”
Angel placed her hand in his. Kirek squeezed. “That was no reflex.” She peered over at him. “Kirek. You are in the medical bay. Ranth says you’re going to be fine.”
“I did not,” Ranth argued.
“All those medical books and you don’t have a shred of bedside manner,” she chided the computer.
Ranth almost sounded insulted. “What is bedside manner?”
“It means that thinking positive thoughts might help him heal.”
“That is not logical, but it is sometimes true. The mind can help healing—even though we don’t understand how or why. In the future I’ll try to maintain a more upbeat attitude.”
Angel ignored the computer and leaned over Kirek. “Can you hear me? It’s time to wake up.”
His eyes fluttered open. At first they rolled and didn’t focus. Angel kept talking softly. “We were attacked by the Kraj. You were caught in the beam of a weapon, and I brought you back to the
Raven
to heal. The new medical facility is making you well, repairing damaged nerves. I’m grateful to have it, because it gives you a chance to live, gives us a chance for
…
” She trailed off and bit her lip, uncomfortable with saying more.
“What?” Kirek asked.
Angel’s heart lightened. He was conscious. “How do you feel?”
“Gives us a chance for what?” Kirek asked, and she realized he’d been listening to her, understanding her.
A reconciliation? A chance to be together? She didn’t say what she was thinking. “Gives us a chance to fight the Zin.”
“Is that all?” His gaze probed hers, and she didn’t need a prognosis from Ranth to see that mentally, Kirek was as sharp as ever.
“I’m so glad you didn’t die.” Happiness suffused her, and if she’d had the energy, she would have danced around the room. She settled for squeezing his hand.
“Were you only worried about how you would find the salvage without me?” he pressed, his gaze searching her eyes as if he could force her to say what he wanted.
Stars. Leave it to the man to awaken from a coma, know exactly what was going on, and use the knowledge against her when she was exhausted, sick with worry, and at her weakest emotional point ever. Despite his query, she still was so happy to see him that she grinned and smoothed his hair away from his forehead.
“You need to concentrate on getting well.”
“I’d feel much better if you’d give me a hug.” He edged over to make room for her beside him.
“Now I know you’re going to be fine. No doubt while I’ve been worried about you, you’ve been resting and thinking up ways to irritate me.”
“Sweetheart,”—
Sweetheart,
he’d called her
sweetheart—
“if I’d been awake, I would have been thinking about much better things to do than irritate you.”
She snorted.
“Better things, like talking,” he continued.
“And going behind my back?”
“Like holding hands.”
“And reprogramming my ship?”
“Like kissing.”
Lion leapt onto the bed, right onto Kirek’s chest. He curiously sniffed the nanotubes, arched his back. Kirek reached up to pet him, and Lion peeled off and sprinted away.
“The cat has good instincts,” Angel teased.
“Yeah, he couldn’t resist coming to see if I was all right either.” Gently Kirek tugged her next to him in the bed, and she couldn’t resist, not when she wanted to hold him so badly. “But he might have gotten a bit more sleep than you have. You look like hell.”
She sighed. “You sure know how to compliment a woman and make her fall in love with you.”
Kirek chuckled. “It’s so good to hear you tell me that you love me.”
“I did not—”
“Hush.” He kissed the top of her head, drew her against his side, and the stubborn man went back to sleep as suddenly as he’d awakened. Only this time she could relax, too because his sleep was natural and healing. Somehow, she’d come to care for him, and she would have to accept it. The idea should have worried her. But in no time at all, Angel was sleeping deeply—without nightmares—for the first time in almost a week.
“HOW DID YOU make that shield to protect us?” Kirek asked Angel from his medical bed, one day after he’d awakened from his coma. To his dismay, he had needed to continue to hold still so the nanoprobes could finish repairing the nerve damage. But as he healed, his impatience to be up and around was checked by Angel’s almost continuous presence. She’d only left him once, to retrieve the chip, so he could work on the faulty shielding for his psi while he recovered.
“I’m not sure.” Angel’s brow furrowed. “One moment the red beams were on you, the next, I’d moved to your side, and the shield popped up.” She frowned. “When I brought you back, I also recovered the Kraj weapon that caused your nerve damage. Frie took it apart to see how it worked. She’s attempting to make a shield for you.”
“Give her my thanks.” Kirek placed the chip aside for a moment. “Do you think you could form your shield again?”
She shrugged and looked reluctant to try. “Why?”
“I was barely conscious when you did it, and I’m curious.” He’d tried to keep his voice casual, but she knew him so well.
She narrowed her eyes, her expression thoughtful. “Why are you curious?”
“Your shield saved my life.”
“So now we’re even. I haven’t forgotten how you pushed me out of the way of the Kraj blast in the shuttle bay. But I still think you owe me a truthful answer about your psi shield.”
“I
am
curious.” He turned onto his side, bent his elbow, and propped his chin on his palm. “While I appreciate Frie’s efforts on my behalf, I’d like to try and replicate the shield so I can protect myself. Since I can’t make a shield like that,” Kirek admitted, “and I don’t know anyone else who can, I thought
…
”
Her eyes widened, as if she hadn’t realized that she’d done something extraordinary. “What are you saying?”
“I have a theory I’d like to test. If you would build the shield for me, I could give you better answers.”
“Fine.” She closed her eyes and appeared to focus inward. The silver shield again popped into place around them, shimmering and crackling.
Wow. She’d created the shield with apparently much ease and little effort.
During his time in the coma, Kirek’s psi had healed along with his damaged nerves. Perhaps the nerves had helped generate his psi, no one really knew for sure. But he’d recovered enough of his own powers to examine her shield. It was pure energy. Dazzling.
Tight, controlled, and yet immeasurably powerful, Angel was generating a psi field he’d never seen before. Woven, spinning, it appeared to reflect back anything that touched it—air, light, dust, or psi thought.
“How long can you maintain it?” he asked, trying and failing to erect such a shield. But he’d suspected as much. He couldn’t teach someone to see or hear or to slow time in a crisis or calculate complex equations in their heads, either. It was simply a skill he had due to a fluke in his DNA. Sure, he’d learned to use the skill, but he couldn’t teach someone to mimic his abilities since they didn’t possess the proper genetic makeup.
“Most of the effort is in building the shield,” she answered, awe in her own voice at what she’d done. Angel snapped it off and stared at him. “All right. You had a chance to examine it. Can you do it?”
“No. Whatever you are doing, I can’t replicate it.”
“So
…
what
…
does that mean?”
“It means that your psi is much more powerful than you
…
or I thought.” Kirek debated how much to tell her and decided to come clean. She deserved to know. “During my last mission, I met two Perceptive Ones, members of the ancient race who built the machines that make our suits and who created the Sentinels.”
“I thought they’d vanished eons ago?”
“The Perceptive Ones left their bodies behind eons ago. They are beings of pure energy and thought.”
“Are they immortal?”
“I don’t know. But they hinted they are trying to help us evolve.”
“Evolve?”
“It’s generally thought throughout the Federation that because I was born in hyperspace, my psi is more powerful than other beings. But the truth is that I had a powerful psi before I was born.”
She didn’t look surprised by his revelation. “When you told me about the Endekian invasion and when your parents had to leave Rystan, you sounded as if you remembered it yourself. But you were only a baby.”
“I was born with almost adult mental awareness and maturity. Even when I was in the womb, during a healing circle—which is when a group of Rystani merge their psi—I could speak with my mind and had vast psi power.”
She honed in on the important point. “So if being born in hyperspace can’t account for your psi, then what made your psi so strong?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it was simple genetics. But I now believe the Perceptive Ones helped alter my chromosomes on an electromagnetic level. It simply cannot be a coincidence that I’ve just happened to meet you, the one other woman in the galaxy with a psi as unusual as mine.”
She snorted. “Maybe other women can also make a shield. But even if what you say is true about my psi, I’d think the Perceptive Ones would have better things to do than pick me and you as partners. It’s likely lots of people have a strong psi but don’t use it. I mean I’ve gone an entire lifetime without suspecting I was any different from others.”
“What about the way you sense trouble? How you always happen to be in the right place? Right
before
the Kraj swooped out of the ceiling, you rolled into the best position in the shuttle bay to take them out.”
“So I have good instincts.”
“What you have are extraordinary psi powers.”
She grimaced. “You make me sound like a holovid superhero.”
“Your psi has probably kept you alive and allowed you to leave Earth behind. Perhaps your luck at cards isn’t luck at all.”
“Do you know how outrageous you sound?”
“My theory isn’t so far-fetched.” He searched her face and could see that what he’d told her about her psi hadn’t sunk in yet, not on an intellectual or emotional level. “The Perceptive Ones need us to keep the Zin out, so they are helping us evolve so we’ll be strong enough.”
She gave him one of those do-you-really-think-I’m-going- to-believe-you-looks. “The Perceptive Ones told you they are making us evolve?”
“They mostly told Xander and Alara, and I heard enough directly from the Perceptive Ones to guess the rest. The moment I saw you, I felt as if you were my destiny.”
She threw up both hands into the air, clearly aggravated with him. “You’re scaring me. Ranth, is his brain healing okay?” Angel quipped, but her eyes looked uneasy as
the implications of what he’d been telling her began to sink in.
“Kirek’s brain is functioning at his usual efficiency,” Ranth replied.
Kirek could only hope she’d embrace her newfound abilities—not run from them.
Being different wasn’t always easy. Being very different set one apart. Those who didn’t know Kirek well tended to treat him as an oddity. If he hadn’t come from such a loving family, he could have easily resented how his psi caused others to be wary of him. Friendships and trust took a long time to build. For Angel, who didn’t have loving parents or a stable childhood, it might be hard for her to accept what she was and how much potential she had because of her psi.
He suspected she wasn’t using but ten percent of her capacity. When she fully explored her psi, she might be more powerful than him. He only hoped she would appreciate the gift.
Kirek spoke openly, telling her much of what she must have already realized on her own. “With my psi burned, I didn’t trust my judgment, but I never changed my initial impression. It’s almost as if I’m compelled to want you. I can’t imagine ever being with anyone else. Ever.”
He knew his words would frighten her. She stiffened, refused to look at him. “Are you saying you have no choice? Because I do. I’m not going to make babies with you because you think some ancient race wants us to combine our DNA. Forget it.”
“Hey. I didn’t say they want us to make babies.” Kirek hesitated. “Maybe they saw to it that we have what we need to defeat the Zin. Or maybe they saw to it that we would meet and hoped we’d work together. Or maybe our meeting is a cosmic coincidence. Maybe everyone has our psi potential—”
“You don’t believe that.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not right.”
She rolled her eyes. “Very likely it’s the first time you’ve ever been wrong.”
He shrugged. But he sensed the fine hand of the Perceptive Ones. They’d been a presence in his life for a long time. He’d ridden on one of the galaxy-guarding Sentinels they’d built. He’d had the Perceptive Ones urging him on when he’d blown up the Zin wormholes and rid the Federation of a deadly virus. He was accustomed to them messing with his life.
Angel wasn’t. Clearly she didn’t like the idea of possibly being created and used by an ancient alien race. Once again Kirek tried to give her time to adapt and adjust to what he’d just revealed.
He turned his attention to the psi device and tried to reconfigure the power to enhance energy. All the while, he told himself that he had to have faith in Angel to accept what she was—what she could become. He fervently hoped that future included him.
ANGEL HAD SO much to think about, when the
Raven
jumped out of hyperspace, she was still learning her new systems and mulling over all Kirek had told her. While she now admitted that she cared a great deal for the Rystani warrior, she wasn’t accepting his we-are-fated-to-be-together story.
After Kirek had healed she’d made it clear she’d welcome him back into her quarters. Almost losing him had made her realize how strong a bond they had, and although she was still upset every time she thought about what he’d done to her ship, she’d forgiven him. Besides, she missed making love. But he’d been working almost ‘round the clock on his psi device with Ranth and Frie, trying to finish before they arrived at the portal. When he staggered bleary-eyed to his quarters, she feared he’d suffer a relapse if she interrupted his sleep.
So she was on the bridge with Petroy when they exited hyperspace into the K-5 Solar System. She peered at the small orange sun and the five planets, which all had moons. “Any sign of the Kraj?”
“None, Captain.” Petroy checked his sensors. “The northernmost continent of Jurl, the second planet, is our target. Should I set a course?”
“Proceed. Inform Kirek of our estimated time of arrival in orbit. We’ll take the shuttle down to explore before attempting to bring the
Raven
through the portal.” She turned from Petroy to her own vidscreen. Jurl was comprised of mostly salty oceans. There were only two continents, and the southern one was swampy and appeared to flood in the lowlying areas. Extreme weather systems, hurricanes, swirled around the southern continent, but the north seemed oddly stable. “Ranth, scan both continents and the oceans for life.”
“There are no life forms with advanced intelligence.”
“Anything dangerous?”
“Not unless you eat one of the poisonous plants.”
“Any sign of the portal?” she asked.
“There are ancient ruins and an interesting irregularity near the northern pole.”
“What kind of irregularity?”
“I’m uncertain. There appears to be a large fissure between two
marbalite
mountains. The fissure sucks in dust particles, air, and light. Even at extreme magnification I can’t see much.”
Had they found the portal? “Is anything coming out of the fissure?”
