Chapter Twenty-Three
Thanh
T he warehouse was packed with people of all species of aliens, all genders. The scents of food, perfumes and other body odors was thick and several times I had to force myself not to gag.
I circulated in the jovial space carrying a tray of drinks and attempting to avoid the groping hands of some of the guests. Several propositioned me, and more than one tried to give my tray to someone else. To my relief, Oontash would always somehow arrive and distract them so I could get away.
I was about halfway through the room when my spine tingled; a sense of fear and sadness was creeping along my spine.
Tohm-Tohm?
“It’s not me. It’s the other symbiote, the one I felt before. I think it’s the Dragon’s.”
I’ve never felt another symbiote like that before.
“Me either. I think whatever Narrou did must’ve healed my ability to connect with other Seahdohn.”
I didn’t know you had lost that. I’m so sorry.
“It’s not your fault, none of it. I’d forgotten about it until…well, until Narrou recovered our memories. But we can use it now to save the Dragon and the symbiote.”
By the time I reached the southern end of the warehouse, my tray was empty and I was desperate to find the symbiote and its host.
Sherrod was nowhere to be seen so hopefully he had made it to the southern warehouse and was currently hacking the drones. I spied Jax untangling a female’s arms from around him but her mouth found its way to his. The immediate stab of jealousy that hit me was breathtaking. I wanted to rip her head from her shoulders, to tear her fucking lips off. I started to move toward them, body hot and buzzing with adrenaline, when Jax pushed her off and Oontash not too delicately took the woman to the side.
He found me quickly and walked over, scrubbing his lips.
“You found my replacement?” I asked, more venom in my tone than I’d intended.
“Not even close,” he answered, hand finding my waist and bringing me tight against him. “I only have room in my life for one annoying female.”
Somehow, that diffused me and I snorted a laugh.
“I did however manage to snag a little something off her while she was distracted,” Jax said, and pressed a small blaster into my hand. “Thought you could use a little present.”
“How thoughtful.”
“I do try.”
The man who owned these warehouses, a skinny human with long white hair and facial tattoos, started a speech from a makeshift stage and everyone turned to watch.
“We’re a go,” Oontash whispered over inner ear coms.
“I’m in position,” Sherrod replied.
“Copy,” Jax whispered. “We’re moving.”
“You have one minute,” Sherrod said.
“Damn it,” Jax ground out.
We moved fast, out the exit, and ran to the left where the metal stairs would take us up one level to the generator. It wasn’t quiet in the least and we’d just made the platform on the second level when a guard ran out to stop us. His gun was raised at Jax, and I knew from the look on his face that he was about to shoot and ask questions later.
I raised my gun without a second though and fired. The bolt hit the guard square in the chest and he fell back in a heap. I waited for the guilt to hit me, but it didn’t. If anything I was relieved that Jax was unharmed.
He bent down and took the guard’s blaster while I looked him over. There wasn’t a scratch, thank god.
The sense of fear hit me again, stronger this time, and I could feel where it was coming from. It was a whining moan in my mind, incoherent and so sad that tears burned my eyes.
“She’s terrified.”
I know, I can feel it too.
“Thanh, are you okay?”
An explosion rocked the platform, followed by another coming from the warehouse where the party guests had been celebrating. A moment later, screams punctuated more explosions, followed by shouting and running footsteps.
There were guards coming down from this second level and up from below; in a few seconds we’d be overrun.
“I can feel the ship,” I blurted out. “It’s scared and it needs me.”
Jax blinked and then nodded.
“Right, you go to the ship, do what you can, I’ll take out the generator.”
“There are guards coming.”
“Sherrod, can I get an assist?” Jax asked.
“Thought you’d never ask. Couple of my new friends will handle the guards on your level.”
I panicked at the thought of leaving him. “But you said the generator was like a bomb, what if something goes wrong?” I asked.
“Well then, I guess you’ll be minus one mate you didn’t want,” Jax said, his joviality forced.
A lump swelled in my throat and I reached out for his hand.
“That’s not funny,” I whispered, unable to meet his eye.
“Princess, look at me,” he hooked his finger under my chin, “I’m not going to die today, you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not done annoying you.”
A choking laugh flew from my lips and I shook my head at him.
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Every day of my life. Now, go get that ship and let me be all heroic and shit.”
I pulled Jax down for a brief, hard kiss and ran off before I could see the look on his face. The sheer material of my pants kept snagging on the rusty metal rails of the stairs, leaving shredded pieces behind as I tore them free, slowing me down. I was barely on the ground floor when shouts and blaster fire echoed above me. I resisted the urge to stop and look, and kept running. Jax would be fine, he had to be.
But just in case.
“Sherrod, if your drones injure my mate, I’ll tear your cyber implants out one at a time while you’re awake, understand?”
“I won’t harm a single hair on his head.”
“You better not.”
I heard the drones shooting above, the thud of guards falling and the terrified sounds of party guests fleeing. Sparks flared on either side of me as guards noticed me and I fired in their general direction. I wasn’t a great shot by any means but at least I could make them think twice about it as I ran.
The sense of anxiety was getting stronger the lower I went. Finally, I was at the holding pen. A shallow platform surrounded the enclosure, which was sunk deep into the ground. I jumped down onto the platform and was mesmerized by the beautiful white and blue Celestial Dragon with a golden Seahdohn along the length of its back. It undulated and the netting flared. All at once, the Dragon keened and a sharp sting of pain shot through my head.
I felt its pain. What is this?
“I don’t know.”
“I’m here, where are we on the netting?” I asked.
“Almost there,” Jax replied.
Blaster bolts erupted to my left and I ducked down, using the raised portion of the floor around the pen as cover. The pounding feet of guards was a countdown to when we’d be too overrun to escape. I peeked up and fired at those closest to the bottom of the staircase. I barely got off four shots before others started shooting at me.
“I’m pinned down!”
“Sherrod, get the drones to her!” Jax screamed.
“No need,” Oontash announced calmly, flying in on a sky bike.
Of all the strange things I’d seen since Jax saved me on that station, this was somehow the most unexpected.
Her costume billowed in the wind, and the Valtoshan tendrils she was sporting as part of her disguise were floating around her like excitedly waving hands. She held an enormous automatic blaster rifle in one hand and cackled as she fired. Laz bolts ripped through the air overhead; I didn’t dare look around for fear that she’d shoot my head off. A few seconds later, the air was pungent with burned flesh and fabric, but the shouts of the guards were further above me instead of all around.
“Jax, get that generator off, I only have fuel enough for another minute!” Oontash said.
I waved at her in thanks as she took off, firing at more guards on the upper levels.
“Okay,” I looked down at the Dragon, “we’re going to get you out of here.”
Suddenly, my ears popped and the hair on my arms stood up. A shimmering wave lit up the top of the pen and then disappeared.
“Done, go!” Jax shouted into the coms.
There were no stairs down to the pen that I could see but the Dragon floated up, extending one of its ephemeral white and silver wings toward me.
“I think they want you to slide down the wing.”
I didn’t ask how Tohm-Tohm knew that. It didn’t matter because we were out of time. If the Dragon was going to make it easy to rescue it, then I was game for whatever. I slid on my back down the surprisingly strong surface of the Dragon’s wing, and as I neared its shimmering body, a door appeared and opened. I went right inside and was deposited into a room that was very similar to the command deck on Narrou, except there was no pilot’s platform or any kind of console. Instead of the orange and brown interior that Narrou had, this creature’s was more silver, blue and green. The lights were warm however, not a harsh white, and the same bone-like arches were present for doors and ran down through the floor. There was a type of view screen that let me see what was going on outside and I sucked in a breath.
Jax was bolting toward the Dragon, waving his arms. Sherrod had two drones flying after him as he also ran our way, and Oontash was blasting away at what remained of the guards one level up.
And then the ship slowly started to ascend.
“Wait, that’s my team, we have to get them!” I cried.
Lights flowed over the interior, and melodic sounds like whale song pounded through my brain. I covered my ears and cringed. The sound lessened and the moaning tones evened out into language.
“Please,” I begged, “I won’t leave them.”
The lights flowed to a single spot on the floor that morphed into a slender pillar that was chest high. On the pillar was a small bracelet, white and blue like the Dragon. The pillar pulsed with light, like a heartbeat, and the closer I got to it the more the pulse synced in time with my heart beat until it was exact.
“Wait! You’ll be bonded with this creature, like Teneras is with Narrou. If you do this, it’s forever, no going back.”
Will I lose you?
“No, but this will change your life, Thanh. You need to be sure.”
I looked over my shoulder at Jax and the others on the view screen. We’d stopped ascending, but they still couldn’t get to us. I could see over the buildings now; more security was approaching at a fast clip, some running, some on sky bikes. They’d be here any minute, and then it was all over.
It’s this or nothing, right? We can’t take the ship, or save the others down there if I don’t do this.
“Yeah but —”
Do you not want it?
“I do. I remember now what it was like to be part of a telepathic collective on my home world, to have their minds and thoughts twined with mine. I miss it. But Thanh —”
Below us, Oontash’s sky bike landed roughly and she tumbled from the seat at the same time two laz bolts came so close to Jax that he dodged to the side and rolled on the ground to avoid getting hit. When he got up, he was clutching his head as bolts flew around him. Everything narrowed to Jax down there, defenseless and in danger. He could die and that singular thought made everything else fall away. I snapped the bracelet to my wrist and sucked in a deep breath.
The material dissolved into my skin and started to glow. For a second, there was nothing. No sense of someone else, no warmth, no cold. Just the light and I wondered if the ship had rejected me.
Then everything slammed into my head at once.
I could feel the air around me, taste the pollution, the smoke, the ozone from the artificial environment. I could see from the point of view of the ship, and while I was aware of my feet on the floor of the command deck, I felt as if I were also floating and flying.
I have to get my friends.
The ship or me, or both of us, zoomed up and then down in a flowing movement that was as unnatural as it was instinctive. I shouldn’t be moving this way, and yet my body felt made for it. Parts of the ship were opening up and forming new spaces. I could feel it inside me. It was beyond strange, and pin pricks of panic threatened to make me close up the rooms. I breathed, telling myself firmly that it was the ship, not my body. Not really. It worked just enough for the ship to continue opening to allow my team to board. Feet were walking on me, hands touching my insides, voices calling out for me, and not me.
I was the ship and the ship was me.
That realization stole the last oasis of calm I had been clinging to, and the shock of it all was quickly taking over.
No...too much…too much!
“It’s okay…I’m here.”
It’s too much, I feel everything…I need to —
“Breathe…just breathe, relax and let them in, just like you had to let me.”
It’s too much to comprehend.
“I am sorry. I was not aware I was doing that. I will withdraw slightly.”
The new voice was high, melodic, practically childlike. I knew it was the ship, it had to be.
“Lorac is my name. I am so pleased to have found not just a bonded pair, but a trifect!”
I was far too overwhelmed to understand or question what she said, so I ignored it and tried to just breathe. We needed to get out of here before more guards arrived.
“Thanh?” Jax asked.
Jax…he’s safe, he’s alright!
Tears fell in hot streams down my cheeks as something tight burst in my chest. Yet, even as I felt all of that on my body, I also felt the excitement of the ship. It was nauseating, the back and forth of emotions swirling around in my consciousness.
“He is afraid for you…I sense that he knows another of my kind, he is a friend. I will tell him what is happening. But you must tell me where we are to go. Picture it in your head for right now, we will practice flying later.”
I thought about Narrou, and the location we’d agreed to meet them at. Suddenly Lorac was flowing and flitting through the air. It was more of a dance than Narrou’s flying style, delighted and joyful. I could feel the freedom, the pure, unadulterated elation of flying through the air and then the upper atmosphere. It reminded me of how I felt when I was first learning to fly. A freedom infused me like I hadn’t known since my accident. Only then, I’d been elated just because I was flying a ship. Now I was part of the ship I was flying, in its consciousness, in its very skin. It was absurd and wondrous, terrifying and natural, all rolled into one.
I was still scared, but it was becoming the kind of fear that I had when I’d go on a roller coaster, or do a barrel roll in a new shuttle. Suddenly I could see how to move Lorac as my mind and reflexes started to sync up. This was a ship, I was a pilot. The controls might’ve been very different, but the core of it was the same.
So I flew the ship and as a result, my consciousness, through the vast, dark beauty of space toward where Narrou was waiting for us.
My muscles and mind relaxed, and I sensed that Tohm-Tohm and Lorac did too. The three of us, all in my head, should’ve felt crowded and it was definitely weird. But it was also…nice. Like having a little hive of friends that were mine alone.
“Thanh, Ancestors what…?” Jax breathed.
His hand slipped onto my actual hand. I could feel it, as well as observe it through Lorac’s eyes. I turned to look at him, watching myself and I smiled at him.
“It’s okay, Jax…this is Lorac. They’re…they’re ours now.”
Ours…his and mine.
Wait, what?
“You’re his mate, are you not? His scent and DNA are all over you. Therefore, he is part of our family. Oh, I am so very lucky! I have a bonded trifecta!”
“It seems that you also got Jax in the bargain. Oops.” Tohm-Tohm’s voice was downright gleeful.
Why does it not feel like you’re sorry at all?
“Um, are you really all that pissy about having that cock at your disposal for the rest of your life?”
We don’t do forever, remember our rule? I asked him.
I couldn’t keep talking to Tohm-Tohm and fly the ship however, so I had to return to Lorac.
This is going to take some practice to balance.
Lorac’s moaning, whale song resonated through my mind, but not as loud this time. It was followed closely by the melodic, chiming language of Narrou. I couldn’t understand their language in the same way I did Tohm-Tohm, or when Lorac was speaking just to me. But I knew the intent, which was another oddity that I’d have to get used to I supposed.
Narrou was giving us permission to use a docking umbilical so that the sides of both Dragons would be linked. Lorac was apparently too big to dock inside of Narrou, and this way Lorac’s power stores could be refreshed from Narrou’s surplus.
Slowly, I felt Lorac’s closeness recede, and I was aware of tendrils withdrawing from my temples and hands. It wasn’t the sudden rush of consciousness this time, but a gradual return to my body. When I did, my knees gave out and I collapsed to a brand new pilot’s pedestal. In front of me was a similar console to the one I saw Teneras use, as well as a small station to my right that I assumed was for operations, just like any other star ship. Apparently, Lorac was copying what it saw in my head when I thought of a ship, even when I wasn’t conscious of it.
“Thanh,” Jax’s arms were warm around me and I clung to his chest. “Are you alright?”
“I think so…” My mouth was dry and my voice scratchy. “That was intense.”
His face was etched in worry and he kept running his hands down my hair and shoulders, as if to reassure himself that I was really here and still me. But all I could see was the smear of blood at his hairline and a deep bruise starting on the left side of his face.
“Are you alright?” I asked, remembering how it felt when he was almost hit with a bolt. “I saw you fall, is your head injured?”
“It’s a graze and some bruising, I’m fine. Are you okay? You just…Ancestors and Saints, Thanh, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Sort of, as much as I can when I’ve only just accepted the bond with the ship.”
Jax closed his eyes and sat back on his butt, shoulders sinking.
“Hey, I’m alright. If I understand correctly, this is just like your mom, nothing to be afraid of,” I gave him a tired smile. “And now we have the ship, we can get the engine and finish this.”
“Yeah,” he swallowed, his smile forced.
“Jax, what’s wrong?”
He started to talk when the coms interrupted us.
“Uh, Jax and Thanh?” Sherrod’s voice filtered through the command deck.
“What?” Jax growled.
“You should get over here. Now. We’ve got company.”