The Faarian Chronicles: Exile (27 page)

“Gah!” Saccharine threw her hands up.

“I wonder how long before the whole place collapses?” Fish
Face sneered.

“Unfortunately, she’s crazy enough to do it, Sunny. You
don’t want that on your conscience, do you?” Saccharine asked as if concerned.

“Yeah, your mother’s already in jail for saving you –
probably for the rest of her short life,” Fish Face added. “Are you that much
of a coward that you would let innocent people die for you too?”

So, they thought I was a coward, hiding from them in the
dark? I felt a flare of anger, but then it was almost as if I could hear
Sensei’s calm voice in my head.
Use their
over-confidence.
That could actually work.

“But – but I can’t,” I wailed in my best scared Earth-girl
voice.

“Wh-what?” Thal gasped behind me. I shifted slightly and
gave him a wink.

“How can I know you’re telling the truth?” I asked on a
pathetic sob. “The last one of you tried to kill me and drink my blood,” I
whined.

“We’re not rogues, Veridian. We don’t want to harm you or
your Kindred in any way,” Saccharine replied. “The boy can stay here, and if
you come with us willingly, we promise you’ll be treated very well, like a
princess. You’ll never want for anything and your Kindred will be safe. How
does that sound?” she cajoled.

I paused as if to think about it. “O-okay,” I sniffed
finally.

“Sunny, no!” Thal cried, overacting for all he was worth. I
had to stop myself from laughing.

“I have to Thal,” I sniffed again. “But, I’m scared,” I
wailed to the women, hoping I wasn’t overplaying it. “My legs. My legs are all
shaky. I think I’m going to pass out.”

“Oh for the love of…” Fish Face cursed under her breath
before getting elbowed by Saccharine.

"Okay, no problem. We’ll help you to the ship,” Saccharine
said consolingly. I heard boots moving towards us. “You’ve made the right
decision, Sunny.”

“I know,” I whined plaintively with one more sniff. I tapped
Thal lightly on his leg, hoping he was ready.

“On three,” holo-John whispered, showing us the two women’s
dark shapes striding arrogantly to the door. “One, two, three!” I jumped up
from my pseudo-despondent crouch and swung my scy as the first woman walked
through the door. I expected blood and gore and slicing action, but my scy only
bounced off her, as if it were as dull as a wooden practice sword. Fish Face
looked down in surprise and laughed as I swore.

Chapter 33: Tased and Confused

Thal shot the woman with the taser, leaving her a twitching
puddle on the floor.

“Your scy! It’s still locked against human DNA!” Thal
exclaimed.

The second woman growled and lunged at me over her partner
in the doorway. I ducked and spun, landing a kick to her ribs, despite the
darkness.

“Lights!” John’s voice yelled and suddenly the room was
blazingly bright.

“Gah!” I yelled, my eyes tearing up immediately, throwing my
hands up to shade them. But that was nothing compared with the agonized scream
coming from Saccharine, frantically tearing her heat and night vision goggles
off.

Through a haze of tears, I saw another figure coming up fast
behind her, literally flying through my old bedroom. I couldn’t see it clearly,
but gasped and stepped back. The way it moved, the shape, the color was all
wrong. And I hated it.

The woman in front of me spun around and fell backward in
surprise over her unconscious comrade at the haratchi speeding toward her. It
pulled up short with a hair-raising
screeeeech
before running into the
doorway, tucking its wings and stalking awkwardly toward us on its hind legs,
focusing on the two women on the floor.

Saccharine tried to scramble backward, seeming to completely
forget the weapon on her hand, but got tangled up with her unconscious partner
while staring up in horror as the haratchi fell ravenously on them.

Once again, I didn’t think. Instinct took over. I swung my
scy, still gripped in my hands, over and around my head in a powerful arc,
before bringing the curved forward blade down and through, cleaving the greasy
blue head in two. The blade stopped suddenly with a
thunk
as if hitting
a shield, and I heard a grunt from Saccharine below.

I yanked my scy back up at the sounds of rustling and
flapping from the bedroom. More haratchi were coming in through the breech. I
glanced at Thal, his scy also out and at the ready, and motioned to him to
wait. We could deal with them one by one as they bottlenecked at the bedroom
door.

We couldn’t see them yet inside the bedroom, but as I
listened through the door, I heard the added sounds of a couple of grunts,
boots hitting the stone floor as they too came through the hole in the wall,
and the familiar whistling of scys singing through the air. A haratchi head
with its stretched mask of a beak appeared, rolling sans body into the doorway,
dribbling a dark path of unnatural, stinking blood.

Two more haratchi squeezed their way through the bedroom
door at once, and Thal and I quickly sent their heads bouncing across the
living room.

Lyta and Otrere dashed to the bedroom doorway, breathing
hard with scys at the ready, already stained and dripping with dark haratchi
blood. They skidded to a stop and stared down at the women in black. “The
little losers were right, Ote!”

I looked down and locked eyes with the enemy I’d stupidly
saved, only to find her struggling out from under the dead haratchi, bringing
her weapon hand up and firing at the twins without warning. Lyta grabbed her
sister’s arm and dove for the bathroom, but Ote was too slow and took the blast
in the chest. The electricity passed from Otrere to Lyta and they both went
down twitching, sprawling across the tiled bathroom floor. Saccharine turned
the taser on me and Thal.

Shoving Thal out of the way, I dove and rolled, scrabbling
for the other modified taser, still attached to Fish Face’s wrist as she
started moaning and struggling under the haratchi corpse.

“NO! Sunny don’t use that!” John yelled, just as Fish Face
regained consciousness, saw what I was doing and touched the firing pads
together. A flash of white light felt like it fried my eyeballs, and I had the strong
sensation of being kicked in the chest. I found myself flying backwards before
crashing into a wall, and then my world went dark.

***

When I woke some time later, for some reason I expected to
find giant, blood-sucking spiders in the room. I shook off the nightmare and
realized I was awkwardly sprawled on the uncomfortable couch with a splitting
headache. My whole body hurt and my legs would not move.

“Hurry and tie them up. My head’s killing me,” Fish Face
complained. “What a mess. But three Katje girls are better than one, and
they’re all in the right age group. The boss will be happy.”

“Yeah, but we’ll have to get rid of the boy. No witnesses,
remember?” Saccharine said.

My racing heart stuttered in fear. They were gonna kill
Thal.

“Now go make sure the ship is still projecting that
force-field. The last thing we need are more haratchi in here. Idiot pilot, I’m
gonna kill him when we get back.”

I got Thal into this. I had to do something. I slowly opened
one throbbing eyeball to the glaring light. Where was Thal anyway? When my
slitted eye finally focused, I found him sprawled across my legs, out cold but
definitely breathing, as if he’d been tased while trying to check on me.

“The force field is up now,” Fish Face said, returning from
the bedroom. “Do you feel weird? I feel really weird and this lightning glove
won’t come off, like it’s suctioned onto my hand.”

“Stop complaining. You’re probably just suffering from the
residual effects of getting taken down by a little boy. Next time I’m taking
someone who knows what they’re doing.” It seemed Ms. Saccharine wasn’t so sweet
anymore. “Let’s get this over with and get back to the ship.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them in the
doorway of the bedroom. The other woman – Saccharine – was standing over Lyta
and Otrere’s limp, trussed up figures in the bathroom. She began to walk toward
Thal and me.

“Signal the pilot to move the ship in,” she said. “We can’t
have witnesses seeing us with the girls tied up. We were supposed to get the
Earth girl to come with us willingly, the stupid brat.”

“We’ll have to take the boy’s body too,” the other continued
conversationally, as if they weren’t talking about killing an innocent person.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” John’s voice yelled from
the bedroom. Finally! But what could he do as a hologram? I hoped he’d called
the police. “I’ve recorded this whole thing and help is on the way. If you want
to survive this, you’d better leave now!”

“Who in the heck is that?” One of them exclaimed, both of
them spinning toward John’s voice and running into the bedroom, arms raised to
fire.

Here was my chance. I had to do something, I had to get up!
I rolled, grunting with the effort of getting Thal’s limp body off my legs. He
flopped onto the floor, groaning as his head hit the stone tile, but otherwise
he didn’t move. His link clattered to the floor beside him.

I saw a flash of light from the bedroom and heard John laugh
before the women both cursed, and I heard a loud crunch, like a booted foot
crushing my link into the stone floor.

I rolled to my feet, caught my balance, and tamped down a
wave of nausea. I reached down and fumbled my boot heels open to take out the
throwing stars, shoving them under my Kevlar belt.

That first day I’d found the boot weapons I cut myself, I
remembered, which meant
they
weren’t child-proofed, unlike my scy. If
only I’d let that haratchi have them. What was I thinking? I shoved the boot
heels closed, angry at myself, but mostly angry at these kidnappers. Would-be
murderers. I shook out my legs, ready to spring.

John’s full-size hologram came to life a few feet away, next
to Thal. “Good recovery time. Ready?” he muttered to me. “Still recording!” he
called to the women. I glared at him in disbelief. What was he doing bringing
them back in here?

“Shut up! I thought we wanted them to leave!” I growled at
him.

“And what were the chances of that?” he asked. “Besides, we
just need them each to fire at least once more,” he said as the two kidnappers
came running back out. They took one look at me and everything suddenly slowed
down.

I could see Fish Face’s fingers come together, and I dove
into a front handspring, dodging the lightening that flashed from her
fingertips. I took two running steps and grabbed some stars from my belt,
throwing them wildly at both women. Fish Face went down to her knees, gasping
and clutching her chest, seeming to draw in on herself in pain even though I
knew none of my erratic throws had touched her.

Saccharine started to shoot and I dodged again, this time
running up the nearest wall into a back flip, all the while flicking throwing
stars at her. They skittered and clinked off the stone, missing her by a mile,
except for one serrated CD, which actually managed to sink nicely into her arm.
She yanked it out, shrieked at me, and charged. I pawed at my belt, but it was
empty. I sprang into a couple of back handsprings, trying to kick her and get
away from her at the same time, before running smack into the fish tank wall.
Haratchi beat at the fish tank from the outside with their enormous bat-like
wings, trying to get in. Saccharine plowed into me, pressing her fingers to my
temple and her other hand to my throat.

“I wonder if you’ll get back up when I zap you in the head,”
she growled, her face looking seriously gaunt and drawn. She threw her head
back, screamed and grimaced something terrible, and I saw fangs break through
her gums as if for the first time. “But first…” She lowered her head and her
fangs seemed to reach for my throat.

Not again! But this time, I wasn’t pinned between the floor
and a wall. This time, I could move. I lashed out at her with the flat of my
hand to her ear and she jerked her head back, snarling in outrage. The woman
had seriously gone unhinged.

I could feel her fingers with the taser-glove coming
together as if in slow motion above my ear, and frantically slammed my arm up
into hers, hearing the weapon
clank
against the fish tank before a
white-hot flash above my head made me duck. A loud
crack
echoed through
the room and then the glass seemed to slowly shatter into a growing web of
cracks all around me.

The woman gasped suddenly, like her friend before her who
was still lying unmoving on the floor. I watched in close-proximity horror as
the flesh on her face seemed to be sucked grotesquely into her skull. She fell
to her knees in shock, frantically pulling at the taser glove before clutching
wide-eyed at her chest, and staring at the glass shattering behind me.

I dove over her, grabbed Thal, threw him over my shoulder,
and sprinted into the bathroom. The glass exploded behind us in a deadly spray
of high speed shards, saltwater, and silvery fish with giant teeth and snapping
jaws. I slammed the door against the tidal wave behind us and sank to the
floor, bracing my feet against the wall as the onslaught thudded into the door
at my back. I locked wide eyes mutely with the now conscious, trussed-up twins
who were struggling against their bonds while a rush of saltwater swirled
around us from under the door. Beside me Thal moaned, opened his eyes and
puked, mostly on Lyta.

Chapter 34: Aftermath

“And that is why I never put an ambient energy sponge on the
taser!” John argued with his parents during a holo-link conference with Alten
in my mother’s office. His parents stood on either side of him and they both
looked majorly ticked. John hadn’t looked at me once since the conference
began, which mostly consisted of the McCalls making sure everyone was okay and
apologizing profusely for their son’s stolen technology being used to attack
us. I wondered if he was mad at me.

“Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t ready for sale?” his father
demanded.

“Yes!” John replied, exasperated. “I already told you I
didn’t sell it to anyone. Those women must have stolen my design! It’s not my
fault they were stupid and altered it. Who puts an energy sponge on something
you wear?”

The women he referred to had both suffered massive heart
attacks and were pronounced definitely dead by both Penthe and Micha.
Unfortunately, their ship had flown off right after the attack, as soon as
whoever was still aboard realized the two women wouldn’t be returning.

Micha had been first on the scene, showing up right after
the tidal wave broke from the apartment. The tanks on the two levels directly
above were connected to our tank, so when it broke, the ones above gushed out
through Mom’s apartment too, flooding most of the level. Thankfully, it never
got above our knees inside the bathroom, and Micha had no problem taking care
of the last few haratchi who’d flown in to feast on the piranha flopping around
on the flooded stone floor. She was not impressed to find all four of us
unarmed and stuck in the bathroom.

I’d apologized to Thal for almost getting him killed, and
amazingly he seemed okay with it. It wasn’t a lesson I was likely to forget
anytime soon.

Lyta and Otrere were fine, other than being embarrassed at
being zapped, tied up and unconscious in the bathroom for most of the fight. I
think they were grateful that I’d managed to save Thal so their mom didn’t kill
them.

Despite the victory, no one was very happy when the warriors
returned to find two dead Anakharu, four teens in the infirmary, a missing
wall, hundreds of lost gallons of water, and dead, stinking haratchi
inside
the Kindred. They’d taken care of the outbreak and fixed the fence, so the
Kindred was safe again, at least from any more haratchi. A special Kindred
Council meeting was called immediately after ending the holo-conference with
the McCalls.

“She attracts them! We never had problems with Anakharu
before she came here,” Myrihn said, arguing my faults to the Council. With Mom
in prison and Alten now on maternity leave, observant but quiet Teague was left
in charge. “She’s reckless and untrained! She barely avoided getting herself
and her cousins killed, plus she managed to flood a whole floor of living
quarters! The wasted water alone is unforgivable!”

Teague only grunted, made a note, and looked around at the
rest of the Council for comments.

“Sometimes women have to fight their own fight, Myrihn. You
know that,” Sarosh replied. I smiled at her in thanks as she continued. “She
did manage to kill the Anakharu attacking her and not get anyone killed or
kidnapped in the process.”  

I looked down at the table and shook my head.

“Fight her own fight!” Myrihn exclaimed in outrage. “She
didn’t even kill them – their weapons malfunctioned!”

“She’s right,” I muttered.

“Sunny?” Teague’s voice brought my head up to see she was
holding a hand up to stop Myrihn.

“I didn’t kill them. I
saved
them,” I replied.
Teague’s raised eyebrows told me to continue. “They were both on the floor with
the haratchi above them and, I don’t know, I just,” I shook my head again, “I
guess I just couldn’t stand there and watch them be eaten.”

 “And she dragged three of her cousins into it,” Myrihn
crowed in victory, “plus disobeyed the order to come outside to fight the
outbreak!”

“Hey!” Thal exclaimed. “Getting their weapons to overload
was part of the plan.” Well, John’s plan anyway. “And Sunny didn’t drag me into
anything,
Myrihn
. I was there by my own choice.” I was thankful for his
support, but the giant bandage around his head, which I was assured made it
look worse than it actually was, somewhat weakened his argument.

“Us too, right Otrere?” Lyta surprised me by speaking up
against Myrihn. Otrere nodded. “And what did you want them to do? Sunny and
Thal were there when they made that giant hole in the wall. Someone had to
protect the Kindred from inside.”

“And don’t you think the Anakharu planned it all that way?
Coming when all the warriors were out and everyone else was busy with the
haratchi that came through the hole
they
made in the fence?” Otrere
added.

Her twin nodded. “Sunny did what she had to do, and
honestly, she did a lot better than we did against them.” She winced at the
memory.

Otrere nodded unhappily, with only a smidgen of reluctance.
“She can move faster than lightning. She saved Thal’s life,” she said. I
flushed at hearing Otrere, of all people, compliment me. I’d only done what I
had to. I was about to argue when Myrihn snorted and did it for me.

“Ah yes, and I suppose ditching Mom in the infirmary to go
play hero was the right thing to do, too?” snapped Myrihn.

I expected the twins to back down and agree with their idol,
but to my surprise Lyta straightened and glared angrily at Myrihn. “Oh stuff
it, Myrihn! You’re the reason their scys didn’t work. You child-proofed them to
the point that they were useless against Anakharu!”

The other council members swiveled as one to look at Myrihn.

“Hey, I just made sure they couldn’t hurt each other out on
patrol!” Myrihn exclaimed.

“But Myrihn, didn’t you think after Sunny was attacked the
first time to take the restrictions off?” Teague asked quietly.

Murmurs and rumbles echoed around the room as Myrihn
sputtered her defense.

“Despite what Myrihn may or may not have done,” Great-Aunt
Nico spoke up, not even looking at her youngest daughter, “I thought this
meeting was to discuss Veridian and her repeated disregard for direct orders.”

“What would you have us do, Nico?” Teague asked, rubbing her
forehead.

“Send her back to Earth. That’s what she wants anyway,” Nico
replied. “Isn’t it clear by now that she doesn’t belong here?” Silence greeted
her question for several long seconds before mumbles of agreement and grumbles
of dissent started around the room. They quickly grew into a heated argument
until Teague pounded her big fist against the table for quiet.

“One at a time!”

“Don’t you think that’s being rather harsh, Aunt?” Ethem
spoke first. “Sunny’s doing the best she can with a difficult situation. One
that none of us has ever had to deal with. Are we really going to ship her back
to Earth when she’s just getting the hang of things here?”

Were they really going to debate my future right then and there?
I quietly got up and left the room, needing time to think. I avoided looking at
the Kindred members as I waded past them through the crowded conference room
and packed waiting area outside the open door. I walked until I found a
deserted hallway to sink down next to a wall with my head in my hands.

Sure, I still wanted to go home. I had gymnastics and a
whole life waiting there for me. But… I don’t know. I didn’t feel
done
here yet. I had things to do here, and they had nothing to do with Anakharu and
everything to do with my mother.

Micha followed me out and sat beside me, nudging her giant
head into my arms.

“What am I going to do Micha? Mom’s in jail and now they’re
going to send me home? I’ve got to find a way to help her, but how?”

You must show patience and faith, girl-child. We are
doing all we can, and all things come in their own time.

“Can’t we break her out or something? I mean, if the judges
won’t even look at all the evidence…”

They will girl-child. If we were to attempt to remove
her from her current situation, she would not allow it. To be on the run,
unable to return to the Kindred, would not be a path she would choose.

I nodded and leaned my head back against the wall in defeat.
A few minutes later, Nico came stomping past, followed by Myrihn.

“Don’t think this is over,” she snarled at me.

“What was that all about?” I asked Micha, bewildered.

 Thal came out next, almost vibrating with impatience
while Micha bonked her head up under my chin as if to say,
keep your chin up, kid,
and ambled back into
the meeting.

“The Council demoted Myrihn!” Thal exploded. “She’ll have to
earn her status back as a Council member. And don’t worry, they’re not sending
you back to Earth. Most of the Council agreed on that.” He looked at me warily,
as if unsure how I’d take the news.

I smiled in relief. “That’s great, Thal,” I replied weakly,
swallowing my almost equal disappointment that I wasn’t going home.

He beamed at me. “Come on, they want us back inside now.”

Despite my expectation of being grounded, or whatever they
did here, the rest of the Council surprisingly seemed to understand.

“Sunny,” Teague began, “Any of us – well, most of us – would
have done the same in saving those women from the haratchi, despite their being
our enemies. We Katjes are hardwired to save people and kill haratchi. It’s
what we do, and it’s an example of how very much you
do
belong here.”
Most of the rest of the Council members nodded in agreement.

 “As for disobeying a direct order, the Council finds
that you and Thal both did so for the right reasons – this time. You won’t be
punished. That being said,” she continued, “you
are
Kindred now, and you
will be expected to follow orders like everyone else.” She pinned me, and then
Thal, with a look. “Is that understood?”

Relieved, we both nodded.

“Also,” Ethem spoke, reading from notes on his link, “until
we can find out where these attacks are coming from, the Council is assigning
you a rotation of guards.” I groaned, but he held up his hand and continued.
“The warriors will each take a shift, one at a time, and agree to give you as
much space and privacy as possible during your off-duty time. Correct?” The
warriors around me all nodded solemnly.

“And in return,” Ethem continued, “you will be expected to
communicate any suspicions you have with them and
not
go off on your
own. Agreed?”

I nodded again, in resignation this time. I supposed that
was the best I could hope for, under the circumstances.

The meeting broke up and Penthe ordered me, Thal, and the
twins to the infirmary to rest and recover so she could keep an eye on us for
any after effects of the taser. I spotted Sarosh shadowing me as unobtrusively
as she could. By lunchtime, we were all going stir crazy, and I was happy when
Teague called my link to go see her in my mother’s office.

When Sarosh and I got there, I was surprised to find one of
the head justices from the trial. The tall, craggy-looking one: Justice McCall.