Chapter Nine
An incessant jarring beep interrupted Camber’s beautiful, dreamy sleep. She stretched out her body and felt someone else’s heartbeat under her head. Her head was cushioned by it. She turned on her side, and her eyes flitted open to see two amber eyes.
Camber had been using Brogan’s wolf as a pillow and cuddling into her fur. She jumped up onto her feet. She saw a neat pile of clothes to the side of their sleeping area. Brogan stood up and whined.
“I’m sorry. I must have moved in my sleep, unconsciously, I mean,” Camber blustered.
Brogan walked over to her clothes and nosed them. Camber knew what she was trying to say. If she shifted to skin now, she’d be naked.
“Okay, yeah, you want to get dressed. I’ll go to navigation and give you some privacy.”
Camber rushed to her seat at the navigation panel and stared down at the controls. She wasn’t fully taking in the alert message that was beeping away, or any of the navigation alerts.
In Camber’s mind, her eyes were on the back of her head. She imagined the wolf shifting to skin, and tall, strong Brogan standing behind her. The thought made Camber shiver and her heart pound.
The thing was, Camber couldn’t remember ever sleeping as well as she did last night. She was trained to sleep light, to protect herself, but without thinking her unconscious mind found comfort in this wolf she hardly knew.
“Was that the alarm you were waiting on?” Brogan said while buttoning her shirt.
Camber appeared flustered, then seemed to pull herself together, and her fingers flew over the controls.
Brogan had woken up before Camber and felt such calm as she held her fur. It was a sense of peace that she hadn’t known since coming to this realm.
Her wolf had never experienced this before.
When Camber had opened her eyes, they’d melted Brogan’s heart. She loved women, but this hadn’t happened since her first love.
It was just a protective feeling for Camber, she was sure. But then why did Camber’s sleepy look make her wolf zoom around her stomach excitedly?
“Yes, it was the contact I was waiting on. We can get going now.”
Brogan felt she had to say something about how they woke up. “I hope you don’t mind me sleeping in pelt. I haven’t shifted for so long. I thought if I can’t run, at least I could let my wolf just be for a few hours.”
“No, no, that’s okay by me, you can…yeah, whatever you want,” Camber rambled.
“Okay.” Brogan was a little perplexed at Camber’s nervous answer. “Now that you’ve had the message you were waiting for, can we go?”
“Yes.” Camber’s fingers danced across the controls.
“Do you need your map?” Brogan asked.
“If it was one of the other hidden portals I would, but the direction to this one is in my head because I use it for escape so often.”
Brogan felt the ship move, and then they were in darkness, with no stars for maybe thirty seconds, then different coloured lights shot past them at high speed.
“Do we have to travel in normal space after we get out of this portal?” Brogan asked.
“No. We’ll arrive at where we’re going straight away. It’s a moon where travellers and people just looking for a good time go. There are hotels, gambling establishments, bars, nightclubs, the perfect place for people to hide.”
“And your contact works there?” Brogan asked.
“She owns the moon.”
Brogan raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, that’s good.”
“Yeah, she looks out for me.”
Brogan said, “Really?” with more harshness than she meant.
“Yeah, it’ll give us a chance to rest, breathe, and keep under the radar after what happened on Oipra, but we need to change skin first.”
“Change skin?”
“Change the appearance of the ship. The last thing we need is to arrive at the moon looking like Abnobians doing a search.”
“Is it like a cloaking device? That’s what spaceships have in our science fiction.”
Camber shook her head. “We live in science fact here, so programmable matter makes a skin over the ship, and we can change its appearance.”
“I’m surprised the Abnobians allow that,” Brogan said.
“Oh, they don’t for other ships, but we’re on one of their ships. Plus it has been known for the tech to be shared illegally with anyone who wants it.”
“I’ll need to show you some of our sci-fi films. You’d probably laugh at them, considering everything you have.”
“Sounds like fun. A story is a story—you always have good and evil fighting against each other. Isn’t that true?” Camber asked.
“Yes, they are just human stories set in space.”
Brogan watched Camber sweep her hand over the controls. “Now we look like a simple trader ship.”
“This realm is astonishing,” Brogan said.
“Do people on your Earth think werewolves are astonishing?”
“Those who know about us do, but we keep our world secret. There are many more humans on Earth than paranormals, and it’s been feared if our existence was known, we would be used by some of the worst elements in the human population,” Brogan said.
“Really?” Camber said with surprise. “You really live apart from them?”
“Together but hidden. We only show part of ourselves.”
“Must be hard to live in a closet like that,” Camber said.
“I hadn’t really thought of it that way.”
Brogan tried to imagine Earth open and accepting of all people’s differences. It was hard to picture wolves in full pelt running through the villages and towns of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and America.
She just couldn’t see it ending well. You only had to look at how not the werewolf, but the grey wolf, was hunted into extinction in Britain.
“You don’t have to hide here.” Camber swiped her hand through the air and pointed out the side window.
Brogan’s eyes went wide. “Wow! That’s a moon?”
It was lit up so brightly you could see the lights from the cities below at this distance.
“It’s a moon. A moon my contact built from the ground up. You see the ships around the moon? They are waiting for spaces beneath the surface. It’s so popular that they wait hours, several days sometimes in very busy periods.”
“You mean we’ve got to wait again?” Brogan’s wolf was clawing at her insides as it was.
“No, don’t get your tail in a twist.”
Brogan gave her a soft growl at that jibe, but Camber just laughed.
Brogan had never met someone who both aggravated her and made her stomach feel like it had a hundred wolves running around inside her.
“I’ve got an in, remember?”
“Your special contact?”
Camber squinted at Brogan. “I don’t remember saying my special contact, but Ziggy is pretty special.”
“Ziggy? What kind of a name is that?”
“What kind of a name is Brogan, or Camber for that matter?”
Brogan said nothing, but she felt a discomfort she hadn’t had before.
Camber’s hands danced across the controls. “We just have to wait for our tow to the VIP entrance.”
The moon was encased in a globe of see-through material, so Brogan took it there was an atmosphere through there.
Two ships came towards theirs. A voice came over the communications system. “Ready to be taken to the dock, ma’am?”
“Yes, thank you. We are ready,” Camber replied.
There was a jolt when the ships grabbed hold and started to pull them in.
“So, you’re a VIP, are you?”
Camber smiled. “No, it’s just a way of getting me or any others in the resistance to the surface without causing too much fuss or being noticed. I can’t wait to introduce you to Ziggy. You’ll love her.”
“Really.”
“Have they read us, Margot?” Morrigan said.
“No, the base on Oipra is in a bit of an uproar at the moment. Communication channels are filled with angry voices, and I can’t find anything that would show a portal was nearby.”
“I’m not surprised at their anger,” Thane said. “Having the Map Keeper under their noses, then she steals one of their own ships and swoops out of there. Embarrassing.”
“Where would she go, Margot?”
Margot held up her hands and then sighed. “It could be anywhere. Vorka encouraged her to have places she could go that even the resistance didn’t know about.”
“So what do we do?” Thane said. “We have to find the Map Keeper before Davor and his people.”
Morrigan couldn’t lose Brogan now. It was like a billion-to-one shot that she’d found Brogan in the first place, and saving the Map Keeper could help to restore her reputation with these people.
“Why don’t I go down to Oipra, disguised as an Abnobian, and find out if they have any information to help us.”
“No,” Thane said flatly.
“Who made you the commander here? I think we both know it’s Margot.”
Margot was silent, but Jhosa pointed at them both. “Calm down, both of you.” Jhosa had the strength and build of a muscular giant, but he used a calm authority. “Margot, what do you think?”
“You can’t trust her, Margot,” Thane said.
Margot said. “Morrigan has gifts that we can use, and Vorka welcomed her back to our realm. Remember, she’s trying to find a friend.”
“A GallowGlas wolf, wolves are not to be trusted either,” Thane said angrily.
Morrigan stood up and shouted, “Brogan has more honour in her claw than you will ever have.”
Thane quickly pulled his weapon—a sturdy, short, bolt spear—and pointed it at Morrigan. Morrigan then snapped her fingers, appeared behind Thane, and pulled the thick wooden shaft of the spear against Thane’s neck.
“Stop it,” Margot shouted. “Jhosa, deal with them.”
He easily pulled them apart. “Morrigan, you will go down and find out what you can, and Thane, you put your personal feelings aside, or you are not part of the portal guardians. It’s your choice.”
He put his spear away and gave a nod to Margot.
“Morrigan, go in quickly, find out what you can, and get out.”
“Can you get the ship down?” Morrigan asked.
Jhosa, now back at the helm, said, “I can mask our signal and appear as a local trader. Take the shuttle pod to drop you off near the market, then it’s up to you to get into the Temple.”
“I’ll do it,” Morrigan said. “Let’s go.”
“Stop looking around with your mouth open, Wolf.”
Brogan couldn’t help it. Since they had docked the ship, they had been walking through an entrance hallway, with so many other patrons. It was like she had been thrown into a film or a dream.