Kessa #2
The small pale guy in gray armor beside the console smiles. I recognize the kind of smile even though I’ve never seen his species before. Confident. Sure. The look of someone who is certain that they know the outcome of what’s about to happen.
“Ah, there she is,” he says.
“Here I am.”
He glances at Syin and Renn as they rise behind me, but he doesn’t look worried. That scares me.
“Come closer,” he says. “Your Voraxxian has been difficult.”
“Sounds like him,” I say, shrugging. “Total pain in the ass. Not sure why you’d want him back.”
Rhazek lifts his head.
Our eyes meet across the chamber and everything but him tries to disappear, fading into the background. All I see is his blood, the restraints, and the hook buried under his throat plates. Every part of me wants to cross the room and rip him free of the things binding him.
Then the receiver brightens. Rhazek sees it too. He clenches his jaw and gives the smallest shake of his head.
No.
He’s right no matter how much I hate it. I tear my eyes away from him and walk toward the console. The lead alien’s smile falters, tinged with uncertainty. That’s better.
Green light crawls across the floor between us following my steps, brightening every time I angle toward Rhazek and fading when I turn toward the receiver. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it’s measuring me. The rod pulses.
Once.
Pause.
Again.
Then the almost-version of my count answers and the pull between us jerks hard enough to make me stumble. Rhazek’s hook flashes green and he grunts through his teeth. The strands above the console tighten around the epis glow.
“Confirmation increasing,” the gray bastard says, his certainty returning to his voice at least.
And now I see it.
They’re not waiting for me to free him. They want us to react to each other loudly enough for the receiver to package whatever it learned and send it somewhere else.
I move toward the console.
“You came a long way to ignore him,” Gray taunts.
“Yeah, you know how it is. He’s infuriating, right? So yeah, I’m mad at him.”
“You are.”
That is not the response I expected. I glance at him. “That was creepy.”
His smile is back in its full resplendent confidence.
“Your patterns are remarkably consistent.”
“Heh,” I snort. “I get that a lot.”
I’m six steps from the console when Syin moves.
He crosses the distance to the console guard faster than someone as big as him should move. His lochaber catches the guard’s weapon and knocks it aside before he can raise it.
Renn moves in the other direction. The passage guard shouts right as Renn slams into him. He doesn’t get a second word out before Renn drops him.
The two guards beside Rhazek move and I run. Not to Rhazek. To the receiver.
Gray reaches for the cracked panel and as he does I throw the salt and ash into the rod cradle. Green light explodes sideways.
He jerks his hand back with a curse. The false count breaks apart into a burst of ugly, uneven pulses. Rhazek arches against the restraints and the hook under his throat burns bright, and he grunts, loud and painful sounding.
“Sorry,” I yell.
His answer isn’t a word, but I choose to believe it means keep going. I hit the console hard enough to bruise my hip, grab the rod, and pull.
It doesn’t move. Of course it does not. Nothing important ever comes loose when I need it to.
I jam the bone knife into the seam beside the cradle and lean my weight into it. The metal gives a fraction.
Gray lunges for me. I duck, trying to avoid him. Syin’s tail catches him across the legs and he crashes into the side of the console.
“Thanks, that was useful,” I tell Syin.
“Break it.”
“Working on it.”
A weapon discharges behind me. Stone bursts from the shelf where we were hiding. Renn swears. I don’t look. If he can swear, he can still fight.
The knife slips deeper.
I twist.
The rod tears free.
The receiver screams.
It’s not really a scream, but my teeth hurt like it is. The green strands above the console whip apart. The blue-violet glow from the epis basin drops back into the glass instead of hanging in the air.
The room goes dark and silent.
“Ha. Fuck you.” I laugh.
Gray looks at the dead cradle, then at me. He’s not angry. Not in the slightest. His face is calm, calculating, and still with that damned certainty. That scares me more than anger would.
“Clean transmission interrupted,” he says.
“Good, that was the point.”
“It is nothing. Merely slower.”
A low pulse moves through the floor and I look down. A narrow green circle has appeared around my left boot.
“Shit.”
I jump back, but too late.
The circle snaps tight around my ankle. There’s nothing I can cut, just a green light that becomes pressure the second I try to move. My foot is jerked out from under me and I drop onto one knee.
Syin whirls toward me.
“Don’t,” I shout, holding up one hand to stop him, but he does anyway.
A pulse blasts out from the console and catches him in the side. He flies into a slab of broken metal and drops to one knee, one arm wrapping his ribs.
Renn comes over the low rail housing with blood on his temple and a knife in his hand. Another green line lashes across the floor in front of him.
“Stay there!” I yell.
He actually listens. Miracles do happen.
Gray gets to his feet and pulls a curved control wand from his belt. One of the guards beside Rhazek moves between him and Syin. The other keeps his weapon on Renn.
I test the ring around my ankle once. It tightens until pain shoots up my leg.
Okay, not going to do that again.
Gray looks at the broken rod in my hand.
“You understood the external path faster than projected.”
“What can I say, I’m full of disappointing qualities.”
“You stopped the send.”
“Yes.”
“But you came inside.”
I hate the satisfaction in his voice. The console wakes again. Not all of it. The cradle stays dark and the proof packet doesn’t reform above the epis. Instead a single green line moves from the cracked panel into the floor track beneath Rhazek’s cage.
The hook under his throat answers and his entire body locks.
“Rhazek.” His head jerks up. Gray is watching us instead of the console. “There. Much better.”
I understand a second too late.
The false version of my count was bait. A copy. Something they could use to wake the implants in Rhazek and pull me here.
They don’t need the copy anymore. They have me.
The ring around my ankle pulses with my heartbeat. The receiver answers through Rhazek’s hook. Something moves through the connection between us, pulled thin and bright by the machine.
Once.
Pause.
Again.
This time the rhythm isn’t almost mine.
It is mine.
“No.”
Rhazek bares his teeth. The restraints at his wrists creak as his hands pull apart. The damaged wing shudders against the floor pin.
The gray male lifts the control wand.
“You broke the transmission,” he says. “Admirable. But a live response pair is more valuable than a packet.”
“Go lick a guster’s ass.”
The wand turns in his hand. The hook at Rhazek’s throat flashes.
Rhazek’s hands jerk against the restraints again, harder this time. Not toward the console. Toward the front of the cage. Toward me.
I know what they’re doing before he moves another inch. They’re not trying to make him kill me. They’re using the part of him that wants to protect me.
That is so much worse.
The receiver pulses my rhythm again and Rhazek’s gaze locks on mine. Green burns through the black and gold of his eyes, but he’s still there. Furious. Fighting.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
His lip lifts from his teeth.
I don’t know if the sound he makes is meant for me or the machine. I decide it’s for the machine because I need that to be true.
Gray tilts his head, fascinated. “Protective response confirmed.”
“Stop talking about us like we’re bugs in a jar.”
“Bugs? No, no. You are considerably more useful.”
Thoughts racing, but the only thing I can think of is to keep taunting Gray. Try to get him to make a mistake. If nothing else, smarting off keeps the terror from taking over.
“You’re not helping your case.”
The ring tightens and I bite back a cry. Rhazek reacts instantly.
The cage bars groan under his hands. The receiver flares.
Of course. My pain feeds his reaction. His reaction feeds the receiver. The entire thing is a loop designed to make us prove ourselves every time one of us tries to protect the other.
I force my weight off the trapped ankle and straighten as much as I can.
“Rhazek.”
The hook flashes at his name. His body bows, then snaps upright. Gray smiles. I should stop saying his name. I don’t.
“Rhazek, look at me.” His one unswollen eye finds mine. “You don’t touch me because they tell you to.”
The green light surges. His hands close around the cage bars. For one awful second I think he’s going to rip them apart and I don’t know what will happen. Then his grip changes and he stops pulling.
The machine pulses again.
His arms shake, but he stays where he is. There he is. I’ve got him.
Gray’s smile disappears.
“Compliance drop.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He does that. Obedience isn’t his strong suit.”
Gray turns the wand again and the receiver reaches for Rhazek harder.
Once.
Pause.
Again.
Then my name moves through the connection like a hook.
Not spoken.
Commanded.
Rhazek’s whole body goes rigid.
I see the instant the old Krixian training recognizes the new order and wraps itself around the thing he wants most.
Me.
The command inside Rhazek wakes, and this time it wears my name.