Talent For Trouble (12 page)

As the Council meeting ended, Jana stood and found she could not look at Darak. Her eyes were downcast as she contemplated all that had happened that day. Drained by the questioning, the pronouncements and the emotional upheaval in general, she walked off the stage toward her sister.

Jeri met her and caught her in a big hug that made Jana feel marginally better. Of course, it also made her sad, realizing she would not be here to receive such hugs in the very near future. No, they were making her leave her only living relative behind, and it caused a deep sadness.

“Don’t worry, Jana,” Jeri whispered near her ear. “It’ll all work out. I’ll miss you, but you have a destiny to chase.” Jeri drew back and met Jana’s gaze. “There are things you must do that cannot be accomplished here. Fears you must face. Questions you must answer. Things you have to reconcile before you can truly be at peace in your own skin.”

“Are you a foreseer, too, now?” Jana felt the need to tease, even as her heart broke.

Jeri chuckled and let her go. “No, but even I can see that you need time—and space—to heal. You’re not a planet-bound sort of woman. Even as a girl, you always dreamed of the stars. I think you belong out there, among them. That’s where your true self lies, and it would be selfish of me to keep you here, when you so plainly need to be out there, finding your destiny.”

“With Darak?” Jana shot a look of disgust toward the man who was talking with Balous some feet away.

“Maybe. Who knows? But I do know he is a good man and an excellent teacher. He will guide you without smothering you. Despite all his antics and his irreverent sense of humor, he’s a good soul. He will help you, as he has since the moment you fell away from the collective. He feels responsible for you, and that’s not such a bad thing, once you realize he’s got both immense power and an enormous ability for compassion.”

“An immense ego, you mean,” Jana chided, but only half-heartedly.

“That, too,” Jeri agreed, laughing as they walked toward the exit where Micah waited. “Don’t worry, though. You couldn’t ask for a better man to fight alongside when things get tough. Don’t discount his abilities. His ego may be large, but so is his Talent and ability to think creatively in the midst of battle.”

“If you say so.” Jana decided to let the matter rest as they left the Council Chamber. “I just dread being stuck on a ship with him. He’s going to drive me crazy. You know that, right?”

Jeri laughed, as did Micah, who had heard the tail end of their conversation. Darak joined them a moment later as they all made their way back to the family home for a final meal together. Jana knew the
Circe
was scheduled to leave tomorrow. It had been the talk of the house for the past few days. Little had she realized, she’d be flying away with her when she left.

* * *

It was hard to leave, but when the time came, Jana tried to keep her chin up. Darak was surprisingly sympathetic and didn’t chide her about her silent acceptance of her fate. Instead, he gave her room to deal with her new situation, which she appreciated.

She hadn’t been on the
Circe
in a while, but she remembered the smell of the ship. Clean, crisp, albeit recycled, air the likes of which one did not usually find on a starship. Those who maintained the
Circe’s
systems did a much better job than most, and the systems themselves were top of the line. There were no half-measures on this ship. No expense had been spared in building her—or in her recent refit.

Jana had first seen the
Circe
as an enemy, blocking her armada’s conquest of a peaceful agrarian world. She remembered bits and pieces of that confrontation only because seeing her sister again, after so many years had passed, had jarred Jana from the collective’s hold. It hadn’t been for long, but long enough for Jana to have some clear recollections of the first moments she’d seen Jeri again and the horror she had felt at the situation in which she had found herself.

Jana had been appalled to realize she’d been trying to kill her only living relative. Her beloved little sister. The sister she had thought lost long ago, only to find her alive and well. And on this ship, the
Circe
. While Jana had commanded a fleet intent on death and destruction. Intent on blasting the
Circe
from the sky above that little blue planet with the strange sun and the blue-skinned people who lived there.

The collective had reined her in, trying to subdue her mind. The blue crystal in her staff of power had glowed fiercely and burned its power along the pathways in her mind as the Voice of the collective had screamed for her attention, demanding her obedience.

But, at the last, Jana liked to believe that she had overcome the Voice. At least a little. She’d taken a stand against it—even if only in her mind—to help save her sister’s life.

They hadn’t really discussed it, and that was the one thing all the questions had never asked. The Councilors just seemed to assume that Jana had been both deaf and blind—as she had often been as a subject of the collective—and had not been able to help in those final moments. But Jana thought she knew differently. And she hoped Jeri did, too. Maybe, someday, they’d be able to talk about it, but for now, the scars were still too fresh.

Jana thought maybe she needed to discover who she really was first, before she delved into who she had been.

When she had awoken aboard the
Circe
the first time, in a heavily shielded suite, the annoying Darak at her bedside, Jana had been scared. She had tried hard not to let it show, but she thought maybe Darak had sensed her fear. She’d been cut off from the collective for the first time in years, and while it was a relief to have control over her own actions once more, there was also near-paralyzing fear for what would come next.

Then, Darak had smiled at her. And her midsection had made the strangest little internal flip. Something stirred to life, and no matter how much she fought against it, Jana had found herself attracted to a man for the first time since being abducted as a young girl.

But this attraction wasn’t like the schoolgirl crushes she’d had when she was little. No, this was something that made her blood bubble with fire and her stomach clench with unknown desires.

And all that for a man who had whored around the galaxy, bedding everything with a pussy for all of his adult life. The very idea made her sniff with disdain. How could she be attracted to such a rogue? A Council gigolo. A gorgeous specimen of manhood who made her want dark, dangerous, scandalous things.

The bastard.

She had been weak, but she had turned her head away from him. She hadn’t wanted him to see and possibly read her damning desires in her eyes. She’d expected him to act with disdain toward her. Or perhaps rudeness. Even force. But he’d done none of those things. He’d shown her only kindness and caring. Healing touches and warmth when, for the past years, under the collective’s power, she’d had none.

He’d made her tremble. She could have so easily become dependent on him. He’d healed her. He’d asked for nothing in return. He’d treated her with kindness and teasing innuendo. He’d even kissed her, but he’d never pressed his advantage, even when she was so damaged she couldn’t have fought off a horsefly.

Even while she’d healed on the planet, he’d been keeping track of her progress, visiting often. Charming every female he passed as a matter of course. She’d watched him deal out fond kisses on old, withered cheeks and bring a bloom of color to those cheeks with his devastating smile and charming words. He always had a kind word for the older women and a teasing wink for young and old alike.

It seemed no female was immune to his charm. Jana had tried so hard to be the exception, but it all seemed for naught. Not that she’d let him know the extent of her uncontrollable attraction for him. She would die of embarrassment if he ever found out how she really felt about him.

And now, they were stuck together on this small ship where the crew engaged in sexual orgies whenever the mood struck. Jana didn’t know how she was going to handle this. Already, she knew she could not hide out in the shielded room she’d been in before.

She’d been assigned duties on the ship, to help keep it running. She was on a work rotation with everyone else. She’d been given crew quarters. It was a luxurious room for a starship, but its placement was problematic. Her room was directly next to the captain’s quarters—Darak’s suite. In order to get out of the crew area of the ship, she had to use a corridor that passed not only his door, but also the open hatchway to the recreation area.

Jana knew that was where off-duty crew hung out together—and engaged in all sorts of scandalous activities. She tried not to look as she walked past the open arch of the room, but she had already seen two of the younger crewmembers fucking the blue-skinned Loadmaster—a woman named Trini. One had been seated on the huge couch while Trini rode his cock, and then, as Jana watched helplessly, the other young man had stuck his cock in her rear. Trini’s moans followed Jana down the hall, much to her mortification.

When she finally arrived on the bridge for her turn on comm duty, she knew her face was bright red. Her cheeks were hot, but there was nothing she could do about it except to take her station and pretend nothing was amiss. It wasn’t until Darak walked onto the bridge a moment later and caught her eye that she knew her ruse wasn’t quite working. He gave her a knowing smile before turning to receive the reports from the previous shift.

It was a small ship, tightly run, with a small crew. Jana had met most of them already, and found it easier than she had thought it would be to make a place for herself among them. At least as far as ship’s duties went. A lot of the skills she must have learned while under control of the collective were coming back to her. Skills related to reading navigational charts, assessing system readouts, plotting courses in three-dimensional space while allowing for fluctuations due to gravity wells and debris fields. All of these specialized space faring skills had stayed with her, much to her surprise.

A lot of what she had been subject to since her kidnapping, all those years ago, was a blur. Frankly, she was glad of that. The little she did remember of the things that had been done to her was horrific enough. The mind healer had told her that some of it might never come back, and maybe that was a blessing. He told her that the human mind often developed surprising ways to protect itself, and that perhaps, her mind had done so.

They’d managed to retrieve the memories that had been sitting closest to the surface. Truly awful things that she had to deal with in order to recover and move on with her life. But some parts of her experience were more deeply buried, and best left the way, at least for the time being. He’d warned her that being on a ship in space again might trigger certain recollections—and it certainly seemed that way, judging by the skill set she had managed to access. Maybe more would come back to her. Or maybe not.

Patience was the order of the day, though Jana couldn’t quite remember if she had ever been a patient person. Regardless, these things couldn’t be rushed, she had been warned. If the memories came, she would have to deal with them as best she could.

Jana found work on the bridge to be both interesting and stimulating, though a small part of her itched for command. The captain’s chair looked awfully comfortable, and somehow, she seemed to recall having felt right at home in command of an armada.

When such thoughts occurred to her, Jana felt distinctly uncomfortable. She’d heard what she had done with that armada. They’d been following her commands—her lead—when she had ordered the destruction of a good portion of the peaceful, agricultural planet of Liata. Many innocent people had died, and it had been by her command.

The only way she could deal with the guilt was that she knew those commands had come from the Voice. The collective had spoken to her through the command crystal. The Voice had been her constant companion. She had been its pawn, its dupe, its puppet. She hadn’t really been in control of the armada. Hells, she hadn’t even been in control of her own mind. She had simply fulfilled the Voice’s commands, issuing orders to the armada that had been implanted into her consciousness. So, it hadn’t really been her decision to kill all those people. It had been the Voice. The hateful, insidious, despicable Voice.

The Voice of the collective had controlled her utterly and made her do things she couldn’t even bring herself to contemplate. It had ruined her life. It had taken away all of her choices, all of her hope, and what she thought would be all of her life.

And then, Jeri had come. Jeri and this tiny, formidable, spunky little ship full of adventurers and Talents. The
Circe
and her crew had saved Jana. Unexpected, unprecedented and unanticipated, this ship had brought salvation, though at the time, Jana hadn’t been able to appreciate it with the Voice still whispering in her mind and controlling her thoughts.

And it had brought Darak.

But the Council was the sworn enemy of the collective. So many of Jana’s missions had been against Council worlds and holdings. She knew they viewed her as an enemy, and her actions as acts of war against the Council. She had fully expected to be put on trial for war crimes when they arrived, but instead, she had been taken to hospital and healed.

Her body would never be the same, though they’d tried their best to help her. Mentally, they had tried to help her, too. The mindhealer had done all he could with her in the time they had together, but had told her honestly the full healing would take a lot more time. He had helped her begin the process, but it was an ongoing one, that could last the rest of her life.

Being busy helped. She liked the routine of the ship. She had a job and a purpose in helping keep the ship functioning at top levels. She enjoyed sitting watch on the bridge with the others and had become friendly with some of the crewmembers, to a certain extent. There was still a degree of distrust. They didn’t really know what to make of her. They all knew of her origins. They’d seen her lead the attack force against Liata.