Void's Psionics (56 page)

“
Why?” She leaned
back.

“
Unintentionally people
direct their attention on us. It is not normal for humans to have
glowing eyes all the time. I saw it was momentarily disconcerting
for Elder Scimitar when he was waking up. Our eye are too bright
and we stand out far too much with them. Besides, I love your
normal eyes and the little flecks in them. I miss them actually.
How they sparkle when you find something interesting.”

“
But it is how our power is
safely released so we don’t go off like a bomb. I must admit, I
miss your eyes rather than looking into a set of gold suns…
alright, make a new wager. I’ll figure how to stop the
bioluminescence anyway. Bet something sexual. That kiss got me
itching for a good fuck again.”

“
Hmmm…” he rubbed his chin.
“then if I win… I want to do the sixty nine where we gratify each
other.”

“
Deal.” She stuck out her
hand and they shook on it. “Now run upwind for a few minutes. I’m
going to clean up Izzy and get her ready to meet her Grand Papa.”
She touched her breast and got a quick kiss before he ran headfirst
into the wind, near to the edge of the village. In passing he told
everyone Scimitar was awake at last. It was welcome news. Renee
smiled, hearing it all as she got up and entered the med bay
bathroom to clean up their daughter for a warm
reception.

First to spot the expedition party flying
fast through the air was an alert sentry who sent word to Oliver as
acting head Elder of the village. Giving specific numbers that had
originally left, minus three who had departed weeks earlier.

Jake Dorgen led the flight, his flaming hair
and beard whipping wildly in the wind, his eyes burning a bright
evergreen. At his side was his pregnant wife-to-be with a swollen
belly over five months along. The moment he found the village he
took a deep breath and his deep voice boomed inhumanly loud due to
his overlarge size. “ISABELLA, GRAND PAPA IS HERE. GET YER MA’S ASS
MOVING TO COME MEET ME!!!”

Andrea smacked his arm. “Behave yourself you
oaf. You probably scared all those kids half to death.”

“
I did it so me first
granddaughter could feel me voice. She’s too premature to have
ears. So she can feel me voice.” He was too excited for Andrea to
stay mad at. She already knew how happy she was when she became a
grandmother a few years back. She let it slide. The Hunters also
being flown by her Scotsman’s power were merely laughing at his
announcement. She glanced to Elder Scythe to find he thought it
funny too.

“
Looks like we both lost the
bet.” Oliver said with a smirk when Renee returned and said it was
clear. The lingering scent was only mildly irritating from his
child’s natural functions. He was glad Renee used extra strength
deodorizers on Isabella and herself so he wasn’t run
off.

“
Haven’t you learned
anything about women yet, Olly? By default I won regardless. Papa’s
words would only have let you win if he said them. I won regardless
and I expect my pussy to be pleasantly occupied tonight by that
wicked tongue of yours.”

He chuckled and shook his head before
spotting the party rapidly descending from the sky. Padding out of
the shadows of a shady set of leafy trees was Nova, the fierce
protector who has stayed close throughout the past three days
waiting and watching for the assassin to return. He nudged Renee
who jumped a little in surprise as he managed to sneak up on her
from behind.

Carefully Captain Dorgen lowered the entire
expedition party onto the ground where other Hunters were coming
out to see who had yelled like a thunderclap. Largest of them all
was the ever impressive Scottish redhead who eyes dimmed to natural
vibrant green irises when he no longer needed to carry near twenty
individuals, humans and not as well as a small package of treasure
of historical significance taken from the forgotten city. The
package being roughly three tons worth of objects along with two
statues of a man and a woman he would place in his private treasure
room along with the other two he took from the city of wind.

It was Jake Dorgen who locked eyes with a
pair beside the great striped cat that held his undivided
attention. Long strides of a man two hundred and thirty centimeters
tall made approaching faster than the average. His heavy footfalls
shaking the ground a little. The grin splitting his face was jovial
to say the least. “Where is me…”

“
She’s right here, Papa.”
Renee crooned as she placed a hand over her breast and the cloth
covering the little joy separated and Isabella dethatched from the
nourishing nipple to fit in the palm of her hand. She covered
herself back up in a bikini-like set of clothes in the hot morning
sunlight and extended her hand as Jake dropped to his knees and
bent over, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Meet Isabella Dorgen
Void.” She said happily in introducing “My daughter.”

“
Yer ma would be proud of
ye, Lass.” Jake brushed his enormous thumb against his child’s
cheek before laying a hand out under the one Renee had extended.
“And hello, Lass. I’ve waited a long time for ye. I’m yer
grandfather. Ye will call me Grand Papa. And ye be assured I’ll
spoil ye rotten.”

“
Not too much,
Papa.”

He smirked. “It is a grandparent’s
prerogative to undermine the parent.”

“
You screw up my daughter
and I’ll make sure my baby brother is pure evil.”

“
He is a Dorgen. He will be
a pain in the ass no matter what we do.” Andrea lilted with a hand
on her swollen belly. “May I hold her?”

“
Of course. You’re an
experienced mother so I’ll be relying on you for pointers.” Renee
carefully passed Isabella’s tiny body over to the maternal woman of
Indian stock.

“
She’s precious.” Andrea
voiced softly.

“
Speaking of. Any signs of
problems with my baby brother?”

“
No, David is fine and
healthy, growing still. It helped you ridded me of my miscarriage
problems and the Dorgen bloodline is so strong. I’ve had to slow
down a little bit now that I can no longer hide the baby bump, but
he is well.”

“
Still want Shamus…” Jake
grumbled irritably under his breath.

“
And
I
don’t care. He’s David. So stop
trying to make me feel guilty. It doesn’t work on me. It’s David so
get over it. Now is the time we look for Isabelle in
Isabella.”

He grumbled and decided to change the
subject. “Lass, that is quite some power yer putting out.”

Her eyes widened. “You can feel it, Papa? I’m
shielding everyone though.”

“
Aye, ye are. Ye forget I’m
rather sensitive. I felt it as I landed. Don’t ye worry none. No
one will scratch themselves to death. I’m a little upset me little
lass is stronger than me, but I’m a bit proud too. A child should
surpass the parent. By the way, how strong are ye
exactly.”

“
Stronger than Reten ever
was.”

“
And how would ye knew
that?”

“
Shit.” Renee slapped her
forehead.
Shouldn’t have said that.
She thought. “Forget I said anything.”

“
Sorry, Lass.” Jake shook
his head. “How do ye know how strong Mantive’s wife
was.”

“
Please, Papa. Don’t ask me.
I made…”

“
A Promise? Lass, the only
people with that possible knowledge are the Creelin. Ye must have
spoken to them. When were they here?”

“
I can’t, Papa. Please
stop.” Her entire expression pleaded and his jaw jumped in
irritation. Andrea’s extra arm smacked his bicep and he let it go.
For now.

While the three huddled together and those of
the Dorgenox crew that was part of the expedition fawned over the
newborn, Oliver and Nova moved over to meet up with the
impressively built, battleaxe carrying Elder Scythe. “He just woke
up not fifteen minutes ago.”

“
Good. Take me to our
injured brother.” They went into the village med bay and found
Elder Scimitar shoveling food in his mouth quickly. “It is a good
sign to see you eating like always.”

“
Bite me, Scythe.” Scimitar
smiled and took a drink. “Aren’t you supposed to treat injured
patients with care?”

“
True, but then again you
are still the same pain in the ass you’ve always been since we were
first stationed on the Equinox for thirty years. I stopped feeling
sorry long ago.”

The old friends bantered like old times for
several more minutes before getting down to the issues and learned
all Oliver had discovered. Scythe then gave a few suggestions and
then told about their time in the city and its marvels. He told how
Jake had called for immediate gathering of things to take back and
how they were leaving as soon as possible after the attack and how
the AI was stolen right out from under their noses. They flew most
of the time since Andrea’s pregnancy was too far along to run. They
took a break every few hours because the pirate king needed rest
after strenuous use of his abilities and camped out when it got too
dark to safely travel, especially since more Beasts were
nocturnal.

The following four hours were filled with
farewells and putting things away before the Dorgenox crew all got
aboard and left Zerika.

For two weeks of FTL Oliver was down in the
tenth level of the ship spending most of his time in training and
honing his skills. He may have mastered the steps taught by
Vanishing Claw, but in human combat against an opponent as fast as
himself proved to be sorely lacking. He had gotten used to fighting
slower humans and the martial style of the Creelin and their Psi
Blades. So he created a robot from scratch. Patterned after the
sentry drones he faced at the manufacturing depot where starships
were made on Verard that was hijacked by Davan Took. He programmed
the robot with Solarian reflexes and gave it a hard wooden sword
and they fought hours on end. Often Oliver’s armor is all that
allowed him to come out not looking like some bloodied victim.
Often Breena, Stone and Steven would come and watch, more often
gawking, as he fought with something able to keep up.

Any remaining time was dedicated to finishing
the Gravity Forge and allotting a few hours with the genius
scientist Davan Took as was promised a year ago. Davan’s indigo
face and two lines going over his bald head and over the eyes was
strange, but never brought up as to why. Nevertheless, his hard
work in teleportation wasn’t some spur of the moment idea. He had
been working hard and long to recreate all the data that was lost
when someone had hijacked his body to kill all the lab assistants
he thought of as family. He was more curious than most about the
Valek’s capability of teleportation and asked precise questions.
More often than not he was turned down. Davan was hardly happy, but
any mistakes Oliver found in the man’s data was pointed out.
Sometimes Oliver would give pointers to get Davan on the right
track. Never giving answers away though.

With Oliver’s ideas and voicing problems
regarding deadly issues, Davan’s human genius mind and knowledge of
mathematics far above the average human drew up a formula for point
to point teleportation so long as the individual had the Psionic
potential for a class two ability to telekinetically reach out for
instant transportation. Having the formula was one thing, creating
the physical means was another. Oliver already made up more than a
dozen systems without saying anything, but Davan impressed Oliver
in expressing that he would prefer to figure it out and make up a
technology to do it on his own. It was his lifelong project.
Oliver’s aid to point out flaws that could have dire complications
was all he truly wanted help with. Davan still had his pride, now
that the drive to complete it for his family was back after
mourning their loss. Human pride made the scientist want to figure
the rest out. For the past two days the two of them had little
contact over teleportation, but they did bump into each other in
the mess sometimes.

For Renee, she was busy showing off her
daughter to the eagerly anticipating crew. The most bubbly was
Chloe the eleven year old. Despite how strange Isabelle looked as a
near four month old premature conceived child, everyone was
instantly in love. Mother and child never went anywhere without
Sparky and a Liger. She gave up yelling at Oliver having one of the
males keep a constant vigil. She knew he was often watching though
their eyes.

When not showing off her daughter she was
kicked back with her eyes closed, but not asleep. She was connected
with her bracelet, learning the secret of her own means of
teleportation. Without interruption, she didn’t need to hide the
fact she was fixated on discovering the means. What took her man a
month, needing to pause to deal with ravenous Beasts, having
conversations with Netul and Callier, taking care of the Pride and
whatnot, meant she had more time to dedicate.

Ten days of hard work, the hardest she ever
had to do mentally, and she unlocked the teleportation program
built into the jewelry.

And use it she did. She popped up around the
ship, sometimes scaring people outright. It especially helped when
there was a rigging accident during the flight through subspace and
she was near instantly out on deck saving the shattered arm of a
crewwoman who had fallen when the rigging shifted beneath her. The
fall was bad, but being under less than a single gee saved her
life.

Also, all the Hunters, her father and over
half the crew had the Warrior Gene and all with the MAOA gene
eagerly volunteered for the therapy. Piranha stocked aboard were
carefully harvested as the therapy changed the dietary staple,
especially in men. The largest change had come from the chief
engineer Jacob Wrench who had near no Psionic potential, but in two
weeks he was able to move small objects like nuts and bolts when he
could never do so before except in zero gravity.