Slave Empire - The Crystal Ship (8 page)

A movement
caught his eye, and he spun and flattened himself to the wall. The
Draycon who had just come around the corner already had his weapon
drawn. He fired at the same instant Tarke did. Tarke’s bolt cut
through the Draycon’s neck, and he collapsed.

Tarke
staggered as the air was punched from his lungs, a savage, burning
pain lancing through his chest. The metallic tang of blood invaded
his mouth, and his vision dimmed. He coughed and slid to his knees,
clutching the side of his chest where the agony burnt. A rush of
memories blinded him as he struggled to breathe. He slumped,
struggling with them and the pain, clinging to the unpleasant
reality of the doomed ship’s blaring alarms.

The Draycon’s
laser bolt had hit him just above the heart, and, at such close
range, it had penetrated his armour. Blood squirted forth in little
scarlet jets, staining the white floor. A minor laser burn would
often cauterise itself, but this had hit at least one fairly major
artery. He clamped a hand over the wound to slow the bleeding. Pain
made it difficult to breathe, and air hissed through the mask’s
intakes as he gasped.

Rayne blinked,
her eyelids growing heavy as the embalming fluid mixed with her
blood. Her eyes widened as realisation hit her. Of course she could
sense it; she was a healer. The alien withdrew its needles again
and moved onto her chest, thrusting them between her ribs, close to
her heart. Cursing her stupidity, she closed her eyes and
concentrated her awareness on her insides. The alien’s poison ran
with her blood as a yellowness, and her body’s defences tried to
fight it.

Already the
poison slowed her metabolism, blocking vital processes that kept
her alive, like the absorption of oxygen and nourishment. Her death
would be slow but not painful, a process that would take several
days to complete, by which time her flesh would be saturated with
the preserving fluid. At first, she could not decide what to do
about it, then it struck her.

The poison was
currently concentrated in her blood, which ran through her
excretory organs. Having identified the alien chemical, she
summoned all her willpower and forced the yellow fluid through the
walls of the capillaries in her lungs. Her chest grew leaden, and
yellowish gas puffed from her mouth and nose. Again she
concentrated, forcing the alien fluid through the capillaries of
her skin and into her sweat ducts. She shivered as dampness spread
over her, and did the same thing deep inside her abdomen, forcing
the yellow fluid into her urine. Her bladder began to fill.

Rayne
remembered the conversation long ago between Rawn and Mindra, the
cat alien. If a healer could heal, she could also kill.
Manipulation of the flesh worked both ways, if she wished. Mindra
had been insulted by the suggestion, but right now she did not care
about ethics. Mindra would never have been in this situation; she
had too many other powers to rely on. The mariner had a brain no
larger than a pea, and its death would be no loss to society.

Now that her
body obeyed her wishes without a need for constant prompting, she
concentrated on the alien. It had an odd chemical makeup, and its
metabolism seemed capable of burning any combustible gas. Its
yellow blood was propelled by contractions of its abdomen instead
of a heart. Most of it was muscle, with a rudimentary intestinal
tract at its centre. Her mind swept through it, finding it simple,
and male. Yellow gas puffed from her nose with every breath, and
cold sweat soaked her suit. Her bladder prodded her to empty
it.

Tarke’s vision
remained dim, and bright lights whirled in his vision as he
struggled to stay conscious through the shock, forcing air into his
lungs to stave off dizziness and encroaching unconsciousness. A
mental touch helped to clear his head.

Tarke, your biorhythms are erratic.
Scimarin’s cool tones held a wealth of concern.

I’m hit, but
I’m okay.

I will
transfer you -

No!
The mental bellow must have made
Scimarin’s circuits jump, and he turned down the volume of his
thoughts.
I haven’t found her yet. You’ll
transfer me when I say so, or if I lose consciousness.

Very well.
Scimarin’s tone dripped
disapproval.

Tarke flipped
open the pouch on his belt, took out an injector and pressed it to
his pectoral muscle, introducing a coagulant. The bleeding slowed,
and he injected a fast-acting stimulant to counter the effects of
blood loss. A rush of artificial strength energised him, clearing
his vision. He pulled out a tiny aerosol of quick-drying
pseudo-skin and sprayed the wound, sealing it.

Tarke waited
to catch his breath, then struggled to his feet. The only thing he
would not allow himself was a painkiller, knowing the betrayal of
the numbing drug that robbed a person of the need to be cautious.
Too many times, he had witnessed the effect of painkillers that
allowed men to do themselves such grave injuries that they died of
their wounds. There was a reason the body shared its pain with the
mind, and to ignore it was suicide.

Rayne
concentrated on the mariner, oblivious to the outside world. Not
even the battle sounds reached her within her quiet cocoon of
flesh. The only sound was her heart and the rushing of her blood.
She had allowed the alien’s yellow flesh, now an extension of her
own, into this calm red world, and it fell under her command as she
grew familiar with it. The muscular contractions that pumped the
alien’s blood were involuntary, produced by electrical impulses
from its brain, like a human heart.

Pushing her
awareness into the mariner’s flesh, she commanded the unwilling
brain to stop sending the impulses. It struggled against her
psychic hold, sending out a series of impulses that made its
abdomen flutter. Then they stopped. Rayne opened her eyes as the
alien reared back, raising two of its tri-clawed legs as if to stab
her, then it curled. The needles were plucked from her flesh as it
released its hold and fell backwards onto the floor, twitching.

After a moment
of relief and triumph, she turned her mind back to the task of
healing herself. Yellow sweat soaked through her suit, and the gas
that issued from her lungs grew paler. Now that the alien was no
longer pumping the poison into her, she was able to rid herself of
it, and movement began to return to her limbs.

Shudders
rattled Norvar, making the floor and walls quiver. Tarke opened two
more doors, one empty, the other containing a Draycon who sprinted
from his prison and made off down the corridor.

Three Draycons
appeared around a corner ahead, staggering as an explosion went off
nearby. Tarke, steadied by his hold on the wall, swept his laser in
an arc that razed all three with a single burst of blue fire. He
leant against the doorway of the next cell, his breath coming in
short, painful gasps. Common sense told him to transfer out now,
but another part of him insisted he was close to his goal, and if
he did not find the girl, no one else would.

Once more, he
was being inexplicably stubborn, refusing to leave even when he
knew that if he stayed he might die. His vision blurred as blood
loss drained his strength. The pseudo-skin had succumbed to the
pressure of the blood under it, and a scarlet trail marked his
progress along the corridor, the wetness spreading across the front
of his shirt. An explosion rattled the walls, making the floor
surge. He staggered away from the door and fired at the lock,
cursing as the beam died. With numb, fumbling fingers, he groped on
his belt for a new power crystal, slotting it into the weapon with
difficulty.

Gritting his
teeth, he fired at the lock until it burnt out, and the door slid
open. A figure crouched in a corner, pale hair gleaming through the
smoke.

“
Rayne!”

Tarke turned
at the sound of running footsteps, raising his weapon. A tall
Atlantean appeared around the corner and stopped, his dark eyes
snapping to the laser with a hard glint. Tallyn’s hand hovered over
the weapon holstered at his side, unable to move as long as the
Shrike had him covered.

A brilliant
flash blinded Tarke as an explosion ripped through the corridor
mere metres away. The concussion lifted him off his feet as
shrapnel shot down the corridor with a vicious buzz. He sprawled on
the bloody floor, one leg twisted under him. The laser skittered
from his hand, spinning down the corridor after the shrapnel.

Tallyn picked
himself up, shaking his head to try to dispel the ringing in his
ears. The corner had shielded him from most of the blast, and he
checked himself, finding no injuries. He glanced at the Shrike’s
still form, torn by the urge to see if his enemy was dead. Getting
Rayne out of this doomed ship was more important, however, and he
crossed the corridor to peer into the cell.

Rayne
struggled to her feet, clutching her head. Evidently the concussion
had flung her back, cracking her skull against the wall. He seized
her wrist and dragged her out of the cell. As she stumbled out, she
spotted the Shrike and tried to wrench free with a cry of
anguish.

“
Shrike!” She struggled to reach him, almost dragging Tallyn
along when he hung onto her. “Let me go! He’s hurt!”

“
He’s dead!” Tallyn shouted, pulling her away. A wind blew
past them as air rushed from the Draycon ship’s breached hull.
Distant thuds underscored the battle sounds as airtight doors
closed automatically, sealing off sections of the ship in an effort
to save her crew. The ship’s neural net started a new monologue,
announcing in its soft female voice, “Warning: hull breach. All
crews abandon ship. Warning: hull breach. All crews abandon
ship.”

Rayne tried to
prise Tallyn’s fingers off her wrist, exhaling puffs of faint
yellow mist. “Let go of me! Let me help him!”

Tallyn grabbed
her other arm, trying to avoid the kicks she aimed at his shins. An
energy shell engulfed them in a moment of golden silence, and when
it dispersed they stood in Vengeance’s hospital. As Tallyn released
her, Rayne punched him in the jaw, staggering him. Two orderlies
hurried over as he stared at her in stunned surprise, stopping when
he raised a hand. Rayne’s eyes were wild in a face streaked with
the yellow slime that soaked her suit.

“
You bastard! You killed him!” she shouted.

“
He was hit by an explosion.”

“
I could have helped him!”

Tallyn shook
his head. “He was dead.”

“
You don’t know that! Did you bother to check?”

“
There wasn’t time. I had to get you out of there, and
besides, he was a criminal.”

“
He was my guardian!”

Tallyn
signalled to the orderlies. “Give her a sedative.”

Rayne wrenched
free when the men attempted to lead her away, walking, stiff with
rage, further into the hospital. Tallyn strode to the lift.

Entering the
bridge’s peaceful gloom, he studied the main screen. Against the
intense blackness of the void, sprinkled with a dusting of
glimmering stars, the battle raged with ponderous majesty. Streams
of blue laser light flashed towards Norvar, pulverising her
disintegrating hull. The three cruisers that had attached
themselves to her retracted their boarding tubes and moved away. A
sizeable section of the red saucer came away with them, sending a
wave of debris into space. Norvar had been torn apart.

He asked
Marcon, “Did we get all our men off her?”

“
Yes sir, all except for a few casualties.”

Tallyn nodded
and looked at the screen just as one of the sleek black ships
veered away and was engulfed in an energy shell. It shot off into
deep space, gone in an instant. “What ship was that?”

Marcon
consulted his holograms. “Scimarin: the Shrike’s personal ship. It
looks like the rest of his ships are leaving too.”

“
Leaving us to deal with the Draycons.”

“
Well, it was never his battle, anyway.”

“
Thank you for pointing that out, Marcon. What are the Draycon
ships doing?”

“
They’ve broken off their attack, and the Gorder Bonn
Priesthood is transferring survivors from Norvar.”

“
Good. We’ll stay until they leave the area.”

“
How’s Rayne?” Marcon enquired.

“
Angry and ungrateful. When I reached her cell, the Shrike was
there. He would have shot me, but an explosion went off close by,
and he was killed. She accuses me of killing him, which is
completely unfounded and untrue.” He fingered his jaw. “She seems
to be extremely upset about it.”

Marcon shook
his head and returned his attention to the main screen. The three
cruisers had left Norvar and joined the rest of the Shrike’s ships.
Two of them had buckled, breached hulls, and the third was scorched
and pitted by laser fire. The five red saucers clustered around
Norvar, while Tallyn’s ships hung in the background, awaiting
orders. He wondered why the Shrike’s ships had not left, then
realised that the three cruisers were too badly damaged to go super
light.

They would
transfer their crews to other ships, then a skeleton crew in
spacesuits would fly the crippled vessels to the Shrike’s nearest
base, he assumed. Again he pondered the slaver’s motives for
risking his life to save a human girl. Even if he had not planned
to make the ultimate sacrifice, which Tallyn did not doubt, he had
still taken a huge risk.

The Shrike’s
ships turned golden and vanished into the void. Last to leave were
the three damaged cruisers, and he had to admire their captains’
courage. They deserved medals, and he wondered why they worked for
a slaver. The only black ship left was Rayne’s, which waited
alongside Vengeance. Now that the battle was over, it all seemed
peaceful, a collection of ships gathered in a remote area of space.
Only the knowledge of the hostility between them caused tension on
the bridge as the officers watched their holograms intently, ready
for the first warning of attack.