[LEGACY VERSION] The Emperor of Time (Book 1 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 18.5 - Damon

"Please explain that," Milla said, her voice edged. "You think we should take people on the station as slaves?"

Another tense silence followed. Damon glanced around without looking at faces. Everyone sat stiff, both looking and not looking at him and Milla.

"Three years ago," Alexi said to him, "some of our people were captured and taken as slaves. We planted a few more as slaves to free the group when it got to the spaceport. Milla's brother was one of them. He did not survive the operation."

Alexi's voice was toneless, as if he was reciting dry history.

Damon licked his lips. He hadn't known about that.

Elise asked quietly, "Damon, why do you propose we take slaves onto the station?"

It would have been her son that was killed, he realized. He didn't look up. But she had asked him, and he had to try. "Slaves are scanned in groups, like in buildings. The scanners only look for disease and any broadly-flagged patterns."

Campa stirred. "Damon, your pattern will be in the broadly-flagged category."

Damon clamped his mouth shut and shrank back. He had wanted to ease his way into Luc and him going, but Campa had seen to the heart of it.

"What?" Oji said. "He's not going. We're not sending Landon's son onto that station as a slave. Alexi--"

"He's not wrong," Alexi said. "Part of what went wrong before was our people didn't carry themselves as slaves. They didn't even have the bearing of newly captured slaves, there was too much hope left in them."

"And you want to send them back to that?" Oji demanded. "On a slaver station? And you can't, Campa just said they'd be recognized anyway."

Damon licked his lips again. He forced himself to say, "Most slavers have a scanner scrambler." Everyone knew that the slavers flubbed the scanners to let through their diseased wares.

"Yes, we have one, in fact," Alexi said, on a long sigh. "Along with the slap-shackles, and the uniforms."

Milla jumped as if shot, her face going stormy. "You kept those?"

"Gods, Alexi," Oji said, "why did you bring those things on the ship?"

"Apparently, for this reason," Alexi said. There should have been irony in his tone, but there wasn't. He was paler now, his eyes glinting solidly gold.

"If we go on the station," Damon said quickly, before he could stop to think about what he was saying, "You won't need much in bribes. Luc and I, we'll get you in. Slavers always get in."

He and Luc would board the station and find a way to get away from Alexi. He hadn't thought the Resistance would have slap-shackles, though. He suppressed a shudder as he imagined the dozens of needle-thin tendrils piercing his wrists, worming up into his arms and hands, attaching to his nervous system. He'd seen the torn and bloody wrists of slaves who'd tried to escape them. He'd heard them screaming. Not even the Ground Force used slap-shackles.

They were supposed to be inescapable, but he'd find a way to escape.

"I have an Aijas passport," Alexi said. "I will take them in--"

"The Void you will!" Oji shouted. "We need you here, to keep this ship in power!"

Alexi turned his palms up. "You need me on Andavar, because I know what I'm looking for. I can find the orium seed molecules and get us out quickly."

"You've never even been on Andavar," Oji said. "I've been there a good handful of times--"

"You wouldn't know the signs of corrupted seed molecules. They could sell you anything, and you would come back with unusable orium."

Oji's eyes bulged. "You're a bloody colonel in the Ground Force. The Halian Ground Force, did you forget that? They will flag you as soon as you set foot on that station, it doesn't matter if you have a different name, or if your passport is from Aijas."

Alexi stood. It was a careful unfolding, still so calm. "We are wasting time. Get the shuttle ready. Damon, come with me."

Elise and Campa both stood, too, Campa grunting as she leaned on Elise's arm.

"Now, hold on," Campa said. "You can't take Luc. He just had surgery for internal injuries. And Damon's arm." She jerked a thumb at Damon's sling.

Damon pressed his splinted arm tight to his chest. "I'm fine," he said, but it barely came out.

"They're not going," Oji said. "This is insane. Campa, we can better take one of the orium stocks at Jen-Ta or Tibrin."

"We don't have room on the shuttle for a full strike team," Campa said. "At most, we could send the few drones we have left as support. I don't give a drop-and-grab mission--to Tibrin especially--a high chance of success."

Oji said, with gathering momentum, "If Alexi is identified, if any of them are identified, or the scanner scrambler doesn't work, the Miravec will have the Kynaston Heir to bargain with. And Shivi Alyras. Do you think they'd just lock them up again after what happened to Hale? They will wave them around, execute them publicly. Gods know what would happen from there."

"I won't be identified by the scanners," Alexi said. "I have my own scrambler, a prototype--"

"No, you don't!" Oji protested.

"Can you replicate this scrambler?" Elise Radego asked. "Can it be used to get our people on the station, and not as slaves?"

"It's an implant," Alexi said. "I don't have the systems power, or the time, to replicate it or test it on someone else."

"Gods, Alexi, what other secrets do you have?" Oji asked.

"Then, can you go alone?" Elise asked. Her lips were pinched, white around the edges. "Must you take them as slaves? If you have a way in--"

"It's not enough on its own," Alexi said. "I will be more thoroughly questioned as a single traveler. As a slaver, I will have a solid reason for being there. We can't afford any delays." He glanced at Damon. "And Luc can heal on the way--Campa, come if you wish. We could use someone to stay in the shuttle."

"So you're proposing to take three injured on a mission into hostile territory--" Campa said.

Damon pushed himself up. "I will go. I'm fine, I will go. I want to go." He didn't look at any of them, and started for Alexi.

"I'm not watching this," Milla said. She got up in a clack of her hair beads and strode for the hatch.

The knot in Damon's stomach tightened. Should he care that Milla didn't like this? He wouldn't see her again. He wouldn't see any of them again after this, and that was what he wanted.

"Well," Seaumus declared. "None of our asses smell better than the other. I for one want to live. I say take them as slaves."

"Alexi Valentin," Elise said. "Damn you."

Alexi held Elise's gaze for a long moment, unmoving.

"Bring them back," she said. Her voice was hoarse.

Alexi nodded. He motioned to Damon.

Damon glanced around the room as he moved the rest of the way to Alexi. No one stopped him.

When he neared Alexi, the hairs on his arms rose again. He remembered now what he had let himself forget in his need to get off the ship. Of all the council, Alexi was the most dangerous. Somehow, he had maneuvered the council to get Damon and Luc and himself on the station. Damon hadn't thought they would let him go. Alexi wanted to lead Damon and Luc onto Andavar as slaves.

Damon clenched his jaw against the spike of fear. What trap had he just walked into? That had all happened too fast, with not enough time to think.

At least he would get off the ship. It would be two days on the shuttle to Andavar. He had two days to figure out how to get away from Alexi.

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