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

Chapter 11 - Talina, Landon

Talina wrestled herself awake, her teeth bared in a silent scream. She sat up in the dark, panting.

Milla stirred in the bunk above. "Talina?"

Talina hugged herself and started to shake. She hadn't cried since-- But the shudders now were deeper than tears.

She had killed him. Oh God, she had killed him.

The overhead bunk creaked and she heard the clack of beads in braids as Milla leaned over the edge. "Do you want to talk?"

She had killed Jonas, and she'd watched his blood pool out on the deck carpet of his quarters. His eyes staring at nothing. She could see his face as he fell, a mixture of hurt and surprise--or was it pain and betrayal? She hadn't stopped Lovich. She had shot her husband.

"I'm sorry," Lovich said in her ear.

Talina screamed and shoved back against the bulkhead, waving her arms to fend him off. Except there was only air.

Milla slapped on the lights and her feet thumped as she hit the deck. She opened the hatch and called out, "We're fine!"

She came back and took Talina's flailing hand, and sat across from her on the bed. "You're safe. You are safe here. I will keep you safe."

Talina laughed. She couldn't stop laughing. Milla would keep her safe? She was formidable in her own right, a compact ball of charisma and energy, but Lovich had trained Talina in hand-to-hand combat. And Talina hadn't been able to make more than a meager defense against him.

The sobs came, then.

It was a while before they stopped. Talina's stomach muscles ached, and her throat was raw. Milla was trembling, too. She'd wedged herself beside Talina and the bulkhead so she could hold Talina's head. Somehow, while she was lost in herself, Talina had let her.

She jerked away from the comfort.

"Talina--"

"I'm your enemy. Don't you get that? I killed your precious heir!"

But they had another--Damon. And Landon himself, if he ever decided to show who he was. In the end, Jonas hadn't even mattered.

Talina looked for disgust, for hatred in Milla's dark eyes. When she didn't find any, she got out of bed and began shoving on clothes.

"Where are you going?" Milla asked.

"Engine room. I don't like how Tank Four's been running." She'd been watching Tank Four's fluctuating baseline since they'd gone back into translight earlier that day. "Out and in again," Campa had told her, "and keep the engines primed while our people are clamoring outside the hull." Talina didn't like it. She should have had a solid day to recalibrate the tanks, with their newly seeded reaction chambers. The engines hadn't been ready for the quick out-and-in that Campa had ordered. Void, these weren't Armada engines, she didn't know if they'd ever be ready for stressed translight maneuvers. Now she and her engine techs had to babysit the tank output baselines.

But she'd had the itching feeling the whole time they'd been dead in space that her mother was watching her. Her mother, who had made her kill her husband.

Her stomach wrenched and she looked at the washroom, wondering if she'd feel better if she was sick.

No. Back to work. Work could numb anything, for a while.

* * *

The lights in sickbay were dimmed with the night cycle. Campa had told Luc this would be his last night here--he could move to his own quarters tomorrow. Campa herself was still in her office. Luc watched her hatch from his bed in the main compartment. He didn't know how she could work with the living corpse of Alexi on the cot beside her desk.

Dr. Mackie poked his head around the partition to the back rooms, giving the beds in the main compartment a quick scan before turning back.

Luc slipped off his bed and padded after him.

"Dr. Mackie?" he asked in a low voice. Most of the beds had privacy screens up, but he didn't need anyone to wake.

"Hmm?" The doctor turned, stifling a yawn. "Sorry--ah, Luc. What can I do for you?"

"I would like to speak with you privately." Luc nodded to the examination cubicles.

Mackie's look grew wary. "Campa is still in her office--"

"No, it's not medical. I don't need to bother her for this."

Mackie sighed, and waved Luc after him to an empty cubicle. The lights flicked on. Mackie closed the hatch, and flicked on the privacy field.

"Now. What's on your mind?"

Luc took a breath. "I would like to decrypt."

Mackie cursed a vicious streak and started for the hatch. "Don't you people get the concept of going to your primary doctor--"

Despite the pain that still wracked his body, Luc moved faster and blocked the hatch.

"Listen," he growled. "I'm going to decrypt. I know the consequences, I accept them. You have no choice but to do the procedure--"

"I have a choice when it's not medically necessary, and I don't judge it to be. You're standing. Your wounds are healing, and you'll hardly feel them in another two weeks, man. I don't see how decryption at this point is necessary."

Luc glowered down at him.

Dr. Mackie took a step back, then to his credit, held his ground. "I am going to get Campa. Argue it out with her."

"No." Luc swiped his halo and expanded it with a sharp crack. The blades snicked out. "What color is my halo?"

Mackie's eyes flicked to the staff. "Silver."

"If I'm Shivi Alyras, what color should it be?"

Mackie stared at the staff. For a long moment his mouth worked. He looked to Luc's right hand and craned his neck to see the Crest etched across the back, but he'd find no name there. Luc had managed to keep it off this time--but still, the Crest itself was telling. If he had been Shivi, the Crest would have showed the double hammer of Avren above the triple circles of Caelia.

Would this dolt not figure it out so he could get on with this?

"Black," Mackie said finally. "Your halo should be black."

Black for Alyras, gold for Chevani, silver for Kynaston. A halo's color could no more lie than the Kaireyeh Crest.

Though it was like ripping pieces of himself to do so, Luc let his voice slip into the flat, clipped accent of Joppan nobility. An accent he had worked for years to eradicate. "Very good. And my halo is not black, is it? It is silver."

Mackie's face went pale, his eyes too wide.

Luc smiled and retracted the halo into a bladeless, short rod. "Use this to decrypt me. You don't need Campa's permission. You have mine."

A pounding came on the cubicle hatch. Both Luc and Mackie jumped.

Mackie rushed forward, but Luc shoved him back. "Not a word," he said. He retracted his halo to a bead in his hand, then opened the hatch. "What's--"

Campa shoved him hard with both hands, right in the healing wounds where it hurt the most.

Luc bent, gasping, his hand scrabbling for his side.

Campa slammed the hatch behind her and faced him. "What the hell are you thinking!"

---------------

Thank you for reading! If you would like to be notified of updates, please add this book to your library. If you liked what you read, please vote or leave a comment, I'd love to hear what you think!