DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy (3 page)

Caitlin reached the woman first and saw that her lips were already turning blue from the poison. She knelt beside her. “I have an antidote.” The woman shook her head.

“Too late,” the woman told her. “Far too late.”

“Why?” Caitlin asked. “Why did you...?”

“You must not let him out,” the red-robed woman said and with her last bit of strength grabbed Caitlin’s arm and held it with unbelievable power. “Just let him die. When his earthly body is drained of life, you must remove his head.”

Caitlin looked past the woman to the locked hatchway. “I am a Healer. I am sworn to save lives. Let me help you.”

“We have done all we can do.” She tugged painfully at Caitlin’s arm. “If you release him, you will live to regret doing so!”

With the last word, the woman’s hand dropped from Caitlin’s arm and fell into her lap. Her head tilted to one side as though she was contemplating, then her eyes closed.

Caitlin looked past the dead woman and saw there was a heavy wooden plank barring the door. She stood. “Dixon, pick her up. Thommy, get that door opened, now!”

He heard the
door of his cell opening, but he could not lift his head. He could not see the face of his savioress but her scent was strong in his nostrils. He could feel the heat her body radiated and longed to touch her, to draw her to him.

“Sweet Mary
and Joseph!” Loure exclaimed as he held his light up so the room into which they had ventured could be illuminated.

Caitlin felt her knees grow weak at the sight she and her men beheld and she recoiled for a moment, unable to believe her eyes.

He was hanging spread eagle from thick chains embedded in the cave walls, his feet barely touching the ground, his manacled wrists flung wide to either side of his sagging head. His bare chest was a riot of cuts and welts and star-shaped burns that glistened with each shallow breath he took. The black leather britches he wore were torn at one thigh, ripped along one cuff.

“Is he...?” Caitlin swallowed, bile rising in her throat. “Is he alive?”

Dixon moved past her and ran the scanner. “Aye,” he said. “Barely.”

“Move aside,” Caitlin ordered.

When her fragile
hands touched him, he whispered a sigh of relief that his prayers to Alel had been answered. He forced his eyes open and found himself looking at her slender legs then his vision was moving up her shapely body as his head was tipped away from his chest.

“Oh, dear God,
” Caitlin groaned as she saw his face. She was staring into dark amber eyes filled with unspeakable agony. She reached out her free hand to stroke back the limp black hair which fell across his face: a face scored with savage bruises and vicious cuts, but a face of such striking male beauty, it took her breath away.

 “I knew you would find me, milady,” she heard him whisper and his sad amber eyes closed.       

Caitlin knew enough about torture to know this man had been hanging like this-crucified against the stone wall-long enough to restrict his breathing. He could barely draw air into his collapsing lungs.

“Get him down,” she ordered, her mind racing. “Get him the hell down!”

Dixon flicked open his laser and made quick work of the clasps that banded the prisoner’s wrists. Loure moved into position to catch the unconscious man as Dixon lowered the brutally abused arms. With his powerful physique and well-honed strength, Loure swung the unconscious man into his arms and headed through the cave, Dixon walking ahead to light the way.

“Take us up!” Caitlin ordered as the away team and their patient exited the cave. “Hurry!”

Captain Wellmeyer
watched from the doorway as Caitlin and her corpsmen worked on the unconscious man. He was unnerved by the physical condition of his passenger and ill at ease with the twelve dead bodies now residing in his cold storage compartment. When, two hours later, Caitlin stepped away from the gurney and went to her desk to sit down, the captain followed. “Is he gonna make it?” he asked.

Caitlin nodded, so tired she didn’t feel like answering. She leaned back in her chair and put her hands up to rub at her eyes.

“We took a sample of the DNA from the bodies. They aren’t anything like us,” reported Wellmeyer. He shuddered. “Never thought I’d ever see a being from beyond our galaxy.”

“Neither did I,” Caitlin replied. “Our patient is more of an anomaly than the women. His anatomy is acutely different from our own. He’s got organs I can’t even begin to guess the function of.”

“I had them bring up everything we could find in the cave,” Wellmeyer told her. “There wasn’t that much. A few religious-looking things, a scroll, a book that might be someone’s journal, and the four weapons.”

“What was on the scroll or could we decipher it?” asked Jax as he joined them.

Wellmeyer shrugged. “Atherton says it looks similar to ancient Viking runes, but she isn’t sure. She’s gonna work on it later this evening.” He was referring to Cathy Atherton, the Systems Operating Officer who maintained the ship’s computers. “Once she’s finished with the scroll, the computer should have enough data to translate whatever the hell is in the book they found.”

Caitlin blinked. “Has she scanned it into the system?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Wellmeyer replied and watched as Caitlin swiveled around in her chair and called her computer online.

“Access scroll scanned in by Lieutenant Atherton,” Caitlin said. She waited until the screen popped up on her computer then sat forward, the better to see the strange characters.

“Well?” Wellmeyer grunted. He leaned over her, peering at the screen.

“It’s definitely runic-based,” Caitlin answered, irritated at his breathing down her neck. She used her mouse to highlight one particular word. “This looks almost Arabic, though.” She frowned deeply, and then told the computer to analyze the scroll with perimeters set to the ancient Arabic language. Almost at once, the computer screen split into two windows: the scroll’s writing on the left, the translation into Arabic in the right.

“Bingo,” Jax said quietly.

“Computer, translate right window to Alliance Speak,” ordered Caitlin.

The screen split again until three windows stood side by side.

“Maximize right window.”

The right window filled the screen and Caitlin leaned farther toward it. She scanned the short document. “It’s a Death Warrant,” she told the men.

“For him?” Wellmeyer snapped, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

“It appears so,” she replied, staring at the word that was undoubtedly her patient’s name.

“Does it say why it was issued?” Jax asked.

“Crimes against womanhood,” Wellmeyer snorted as he read the document over Caitlin’s shoulder. “His name is Khiershon Cree, son of Kamerone.”

“What does that mean, I wonder? His crimes against womanhood,” Jax questioned. “Rape? Murder?”

“It could mean anything,” Caitlin replied and turned so she could look across the sick bay to the unconscious man. “Whatever he did, they hated him enough to want to hurt him badly before they killed him.”

“The question is,” mumbled Wellmeyer, “what stopped them? Why kill themselves before they carried out his sentence?”

“Maybe they thought he was already dead,” Jax put forth. “I mean, they were obviously involved in some kind of religious cult. Swilling down a cup of hemlock is not something any sane person would do.”

“I think they were questioning him,” Caitlin said and when they asked her why she felt that way, she couldn’t answer. It was a gut feeling and one that had been nagging at her.

“Trying to find an accomplice, maybe?” asked Wellmeyer.

“Or accomplices,” Caitlin corrected. “Maybe he’s a warrior and his people are at war with those women.” She drew in a long, tired breath. “Who the hell knows?” She covered her face with her hands. “Until he wakes up and we can question him, we won’t know.”

“If he doesn’t speak Alliance, how will you communicate?” asked Wellmeyer.

Caitlin pulled her hands away from her face and stared up at Wellmeyer. That idiotic question was just one more reason she detested Herbert Wellmeyer, and another reason the bureaucrat had no business being in command of a Medivac ship.

Jax hid his amusement by ducking his head and when it became apparent Caitlin wasn’t going to answer, he replied, “He spoke to her when he was found, Sir.”

“Oh,” Wellmeyer grunted. He realized he should have known that, but hid his embarrassment by maintaining a bored look. “Then perhaps she’ll be able to understand him.”

Jax rolled his eyes and turned away. He wished-not for the first time-that Caitlin had been assigned CO of the Orion.

Wellmeyer looked around, found no one paying any attention to him and turned to go. “Report to me as soon as you learn anything concrete.”

“You’ll be the first to know, you sanctimonious bastard,” Caitlin muttered. She watched him leave then turned to catch Jax’s eye. “That man couldn’t pour piss out of a gravity boot with the instructions stamped on it.”

“Now, now,” Jax said, wagging a finger at her. “That isn’t nice.”

Caitlin smiled. “And could probably be classified as insubordination.” She couldn’t stop the yawn that came and gave in to it.

“Why don’t you go lie down and try to sleep, Doc?” Jax suggested. “I’ll let you know if there’s any change.”

Caitlin was dead tired. Her weeks of sleeplessness were beginning to take its toll. She knew she wouldn’t be any good to anyone if she didn’t get some rest. Getting wearily to her feet, she put her hands to the small of her back and stretched, rolling her head from side to side. She looked at her patient, knew he’d sleep on for a while yet, and told Jax she was going to her quarters. “Call me the moment he even bats an eyelash,” she ordered.

“And a thick, luscious eyelash at that,” Lisa Mahon, one of the med techs, sighed wistfully, then gasped at her indiscretion. She blushed. “I’m sorry, Doc. I don’t know why the heck I said that!”

Caitlin grinned. “You’ve been on the Orion far too long, Lisa,” she replied. “I think you need to take a much-needed shore leave, lady!”

“We all do,” Lida, one of the other med techs, agreed.

As she took the elevator to her quarters, Caitlin could not stop thinking about her patient. It was more than the brutal physical abuse the man had suffered making her unable to get him out of her mind. Or the unstable condition he was in that could go either way: back to health or into cold storage alongside the women who had tortured him. She just could not seem to force her thoughts away from him.

Or get his face from her mind’s eye.

Or his voice from some deep responsive part of her.

“I knew you would find me,” he’d said.

“How did you know?” she asked, unaware she had spoken aloud until the elevator Com-Link asked if she needed anything.

“No,” Caitlin replied. “Just a good night’s sleep.”

“May I suggest a Temparest, Dr. Kelly?” the Com-Link asked. “I could have Counselor Rema-”

“No, thank you,” Caitlin said forcefully. “I don’t need any sedatives.”

There was a slight, irritated pause, then: “As you wish, Doctor.” The Com-Link cut off with a click.

Her quarters felt confined and Caitlin asked Conar to spray the room with a mist of lavender. “And I’d like to hear a gentle rain with thunder in the distance,” she added.

“I shall do as you ask, Dearling,” her Com-Link acknowledged.

Caitlin opened her mouth to instruct her AI unit to cease with its affectionate-and to her ear, intimate-sobriquets, but she closed her lips again. The Com-Link’s soft words and sensual voice was as close as Caitlin had been in several months to a lover’s voice.

She stripped, put on her old flannel gown, frowning at the rent under the left arm and the threadbare condition of the bodice. She made a mental note to order another gown when she got to Fealst. It would be months before it was brought up from Terra, but at least she’d know it was on its way to her. There was nothing as comforting as sleeping in a warm, flannel gown two sizes too large.

Except maybe in the brawny arms of a tall, dark haired, amber-eyed man with....

Caitlin paused as she was about to crawl beneath the covers and wondered where the hell that thought had come from. She probed at it-much as one would an aching tooth-then decided she was too tired to dwell on the matter. She plumped her pillow into submission, lay down, wiggled comfortable beneath the covers then gave her Com-Link two final instructions.

“Lights out and access mainframe language translation of runic scroll, duelize, and begin downloading data as soon as I am in REM sleep. I want to know how to speak that language.”

“It will not disturb your sleep, Dearling?” the Com-Link asked in a caring tone of voice laced with just a touch of admonishment.

“Just do it, Coni,” Caitlin ground out. “And stop questioning my orders.”

There was a brief pause, then: “Aye, love,” the Com-Link sighed, giving in to her wishes.

As REM sleep took over Caitlin’s tired brain, the translating of the strange language into ancient Arabic, then into Alliance language, began its transmission into the surgical implants behind Caitlin’s left ear. Within half an hour, she had assimilated the new language-which she learned was called Rysalian High Speech-and would be able to speak it like a native.