Chapter 13
I follow the human that tranquillized Tessi outside but can’t find him in the hallways. A thread of the sickly sweet scent of tranquilizer fluid lingers, and I have a direction.
I track him into the stairwell and down a hallway into a different wing of the females’ dorms. A mix of scents of other animals threatens to ruin my hunt, muddling the sharpness of the scent I’m chasing.
I snort everything out of my lungs, remember his scent, and move to a hallway.
I check it and then the next until I pick up his scent again.
He’s smart, trying to confuse me. But I’m no ordinary Luna.
The whiz of another dart through the air exposes his location. I duck and let the dart pass over my shoulder. Then I reach into the shadows of a service passageway and pull him into the open. I throw him against the wall hard enough it dents a panel. “Why do you do this?”
His piercing black eyes shine with triumph. “You’re too late. I’m tracking her now.”
I tighten my hand around his neck. All it would take is letting my Shifter have an ounce of control. And he would snap like a twig.
“Stop! Release him!” A security team has found us.
The man before me grins, blinks, lighting up blue implants in his eyes. Then he vanishes like he has a portal wrapped around his body.
Anger surges. I curl my hand into a fist and punch the wall. If I don’t release the compounding frustration soon, I’m going to snap. “If you hadn’t interrupted, I could’ve found out what he wanted with Tessi!”
They lower their rifles. “Who was that?”
I storm past them. “Maybe you should look into it.”
The man I assume is the security team’s squad leader calls after me. “Where are you going? You need to answer some questions!”
“I have to care for my now-drugged female.” I glare back at them.
I thought this facility was supposed to be secure.
“How about you get your shit in order before you come asking me questions about what’s going on with your property and why so many of our enemies seem to just come and go as they please! ”
Entering the mingle celebration, I find Spike and Carnas have moved Tessi to a cushioned bench. Carielle hovers close by. She clicks her tongue as she sips a martini.
Sliding my arms under Tessi, I curl her against my chest and straighten. Carnas and Spike have their own females to worry about.
“Thank you,” I say.
Carnas tilts his head toward the door. “Medics are on their way with a bed.”
Spike gives me a nod.
I carry Tessi out of the mingle hall and toward the female’s medical wing.
“Zorin Aegeris?”
I stop. What now?
When I turn around, I discover General Viriden stalking down the corridor, skin glowing from inside his armor with ten radiant males at his back, and two females. Other racers in the hallway stop to gawk at them.
Viriden looks around, then motions the medical staff over with the gurney. “I would prefer if you stayed on my ship. We have an excellent medical team. Your team is not here yet.”
“Mine?”
“They are en route with an M-pack ship and your Star Slasher. Please…” He motions for me to lay Tessi on the hovering bed.
“Yes, sir.” I reluctantly lay her back and let the staff float her down the hallway toward the private hangar of the males’ wing. General Viriden waits until I join him, then walks beside me instead of ahead of me as a General should. His team moves to surround Tessi, not him.
“Don’t worry, Zorin. There are more soldiers watching us than you can see. I am sorry I could not arrive sooner. Earth’s security is tight, but sometimes it is a hindrance for those of us who follow the rules. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
“It’s not funny. It is a vulnerability. Earth does not have good immediate threat condition exceptions.”
“Agreed.” He folds his hands behind him. “And that was meant to be a joke. Humans say something is funny when it is frustratingly ironic.”
“I see.” I can’t stop looking at Tessi. “Why do Nebs want her?”
Viriden checks something on his wristband, then hangs his arms at his sides again. “There is a small faction of Nebulous soldiers that think she can change the war.”
“But that doesn’t make sense if she doesn’t have any…skills.”
“Are you certain?”
“Well, no. I mean, we just met.”
He rubs his jaw. “Then I guess we better find out when she’s awake.”
I follow them up the ramp and into a vibrant ship with white walls, radiant bar lighting, and gold trim. Every time I have entered the swooping curves of an Isonian ship, I have been in awe of their engineering.
Our ships have sharp angles, dark metal, and loud engines.
They get Tessi hooked up to machines in a med bay that’s higher tech than our Mindoran high commanders’ best quarters.
“How do you know her?” I ask Viriden.
“Her mother was on a joint task force with Isonians back when I was still just what Earthlings call grunts. A few of us spent many months together. And we’ll just say that I had to send a lot of souls back to the cosmos after a battle with the Nebs.
“I made her mother a promise that if anything should happen to her daughter, that I would answer her call. So many years had passed that I had become distracted by the thousands of other lives I am responsible for now. I must make up for my broken promise. Tessi has suffered longer than I realized.”
“Sir, I can’t get the barb out.” The nurse, in tan scrubs runs the scanner over Tessi’s neck again. “Tracker’s out. Not the barb. Not without hurting her.”
“I can do it.” I step forward. “But you probably won’t like my method.”
“With what? Your teeth?” The nurse gapes at me.
“There are more nerve endings in a tongue than in a finger. And I’ve chewed out plenty of thorns, spines, and taser probes, more than you have.”
A soldier shimmers into reality beside me. Onidus, someone I served with on a past mission, peers out from behind his gold armored mask. The V shaped scar over his right eye, his iris no longer gold but white, is unmistakable. “I trust him.”
“You’re an Aural Bender now?” I ask.
He grins. It shows in the way his face creases near his eyes.
“Among other things. But so are you, I hear.”
“Including a reclusive pain in the ass that won’t call his M-pack when he needs them.”
I turn to find familiar Mindoran faces filling the doorway. Behind me, the nurse and Viriden discuss the pros and cons of letting me help.
Esrynne, our only female Slayer, casually leans a shoulder against the wall. Her sharp, dark blue eyes expose her concern. The tattoos on her arms shine with flecks of fresh welding slag scars. She’s been working on her hoverbike again. “Do you disagree?”
Guilt makes me run a hand over my face to hide from the notion that I am not enough to keep Tessi safe on my own. “No. I just didn’t want to bother you.”
Marne has brought his crew, including sniper Esrynne, Ignus, our quiet tech expert, and medic Rorsar. Davarok and Kren from my team file in behind them.
The only one who is missing is Azrim.
“Respectfully sir, that’s bullshit. You always help us outside of work,” Kren interjects, rubbing the drool mark off his shoulder with an annoyed glance at Davarok.
He’s a far better pilot than I am and taught me most of what I know about engines while I helped him with his.
The pulsing blue tracework in his temples tells me he finally got the implants he always wanted, the ones that let him pull up starship systems and overlay them with his vision.
I sigh. “I’m your team leader. Of course, I help you. I need my team in top shape.”
Davarok’s hair is askew in tufts while he tears off a piece of jerky from his stick with his metal canine replacements, then motions toward me, swinging the length of meat wildly in the air. “Exactly. And we need a leader who can focus, which means we help you keep your shit together.”
Esrynne rolls her eyes. “Would you put that away, D?”
“I didn’t get to eat or sleep before the ride here,” Davarok defends, smoothing the brindle hair atop his head, a rare trait we share.
“None of us did.” Rorsar leaves the group and lowers his voice as he comes closer until I can see the ghost lines of his old pack mark, the one he had lasered off of his neck.
“You haven’t been in top shape since Jezza died.
Why didn’t you call? I could’ve tended to your wounds. Instead you let them scar deeply.”
I study the insistence in his pale gray gaze and the knit to his brow. “Yes.”
Rorsar glances at Viriden as he speaks with me. “You wanted that?”
“I was dealing. I didn’t want to drag you down with us. I couldn’t be what you needed…or what my brother and my nephew needed. Not my best moments.”
Rorsar studies my fresh bandages. “And here we are again.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t ask.”
He nods and pats his medical pouches as he walks away. I’m certain he’ll check on me later.
Marne is the voice of calm reason, a hair taller than me, and three years my senior, with a light blue coat and the quickest claw draw of anyone on the force, save for maybe Azrim.
No matter what shit goes down, he remains collected.
“Never think you have to go through your struggles alone. We just wish we’d known so we could’ve been there with you two. ”
Davarok swings his jerky toward me like he’s going to say something more, but I hold up my hands. “Can we talk in a minute? Tessi needs my attention right now. And I am at the edge.”
Marne motions the crews out of the room, walks up to me and pulls my forehead to his. Brother, you have us. I know you don’t want to ask for it, but we are here whether or not you like it.
Thanks.
He releases me and backs up, taking one last glance at Tessi and the staff before following our teams. General Viriden joins them, motioning to Marne that he wants a word.
The nurse points to the spot on Tessi’s neck. “It’s straight in there. I can’t get deep enough with the tweezers without cutting her open or connecting a vacuum line. As much as I don’t like this, the general wants it done.”