[LEGACY VERSION] The Enemy of Time (Book 2 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 2 - Damon

The airlock opened on the too-chill and damp air of the Resistance ship. Damon squinted as the helmet lights of pressure suits beamed his way in the dark. Gloved hands reached to help Luc and him onto the ship.

"Campa said you had injured--" one of the crewers said.

Campa, talking to someone a few meters away, turned and called, "Yes--get Luc to the infirmary immediately."

The suited crewers started to pull Luc away from Damon. Luc groaned, and clutched at his pocket. The case with the seed molecules.

"Luc," Damon said, "I need the case."

Luc coughed, and gripped it inside his shirt pocket. "No."

Damon slipped free and darted his hand in to grab it. Luc swiped at his wrist, making the whole of Damon's good arm ring numbly to his shoulder. But Damon had the case and he danced back out of Luc's reach.

"It's safe," he said. "Go with them."

"Damon, I need my case--"

"I have it, we're here. We're on the ship. We're safe."

Luc swore and reached again, but the crewers held him back. For all of Luc's strength, it was scary to see how easily they handled him in this state.

"Campa! Damon!" Milla jogged up to them, wearing bundled clothes in the cold but not a pressure suit.

Campa scowled. "Where's your suit--"

"Where's yours?" Milla snapped back. "Are you okay?" She shined her hand light around them. "Where's Alexi?"

"Injured, still on the shuttle," Campa said. She called to the crewers, "Get someone to carry Alexi off the shuttle--carefully. He is in stasis."

"Stasis?" Milla said.

Campa turned back, and spied the black case in Damon's hand. "You have the seed molecules? Good. Damon, go with Milla. Get the ship running again."

"Come," Milla said. "We're almost out of emergency power and we've got half the ship depressurized to conserve air, and we're huddled for heat. It doesn't smell pretty."

Damon took a step after Milla, then paused.

Talina stood near one wall, arms tight around herself. Her black and red Armada uniform wasn't as out of place as it could be--many among the Resistance refugees had been planted as Armada crewers and officers for years. Out of habit or lack of anything else to wear, they still wore their uniforms. But she was a stranger in a ship that had no strangers.

Talina was not his friend, he hardly even knew her. But she'd dragged him away from their pursuers on the station while he'd been stumbling and half crazy. He couldn't leave her alone in the dark, among strangers. He moved closer so he didn't have to speak loudly.

"Talina," he said.

She looked past him.

He softened his voice even more, like talking to a slave who'd had one too many beatings. "We're going to the engine room. We need your help. You can help with the seed molecules, right?"

Her eyes almost met his, a black gleam in the dark.

Milla came up beside him. "Damon, are you coming? Who is this?"

Damon licked his lips. "Talina Chevani." He would not give the name Talina had given them on the shuttle: Talina Zivali. Daughter of their enemy. "She's an Armada engineer."

Talina straightened. "Chief engineer of the M.A.S. Teven Spar," she said. She looked around, only now seeming aware of her surroundings. "God, what happened here? Ah, the seed-molecules. Power drain. Come on then, let's go start the engines."

She grabbed the black case from Damon and strode away down the corridor.

Milla shot Damon a baffled look, then they hurried after.

"She's in shock," Damon said in a low voice.

"Damon, what happened on the station? You, Alexi, Luc--hey, ladder is this way," Milla called ahead to Talina. "Lifts are down, and that next section's sealed off."

Talina changed course smoothly, not looking back.

"Chevani?" Milla asked. "As in, the Chevanis of Sayron? King Aidan and the lot?"

"She's married to Jonadi," Damon said.

Milla hissed. "He's alive?"

Damon didn't answer. He'd told no one of the conversations he'd had with Alexi on the station--conversations in his head, after Alexi had already been unconscious. He wasn't sure, when he thought about it, if it had actually happened. But it had to have happened. Alexi had said he was going to save Jonadi. One minute, Jonadi was falling from the pulse darts to his chest. And then Jonadi disappeared, and Alexi helped Damon hold the image of Jonadi lying there, pooling out blood on the deck carpet. When Campa touched the image, it had been solid and real. And dead.

Was that image of Jonadi real? Or was Jonadi somewhere else, alive? He didn't know.

"Are you all right?" Milla asked. She touched his hand, and then drew back sharply. "What is that--"

Damon tried to pull away, but she captured his hand again, and pushed up the sleeve of the loose ship knits they'd found in the shuttle's lockers.

"Is this a shackle cuff? Not slap shackles, this is military-grade--gods, your wrists."

She brushed the skintape that wound around his wrists, where the pinprick wounds from the slavers' slap-shackle cuffs were healing. Those cuffs had come off easily enough with the key card, but the shuttle hadn't yielded any tools strong enough to cut through the Aramada shackles without injuring themselves.

"Damon--"

"Talina's going down the ladder," Damon said. "You'd better tell her where to go."

"Right," Milla said, and hurried to the tight spiral of the emergency stairs. She took her hand light with her, but though the corridor went dark, there had to be some sort of emergency glow in the walls. Damon could see the outlines of hatches along the corridor bend.

The ship felt too still, too quiet. No hum of engines, no rumble of machinery. There was only the soft hiss of air from a vent a meter or so away.

Milla's and Talina's voices echoed up from the ladder's stairwell, cutting off when the hatch shut behind them.

Talina would be okay. This was the most alive Damon had seen her since they'd left the Armada ship. And she was with Milla now, Milla would help to steady her.

If Milla was busy, Damon didn't have to answer any more questions. He fled back toward the infirmary.

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