Desert World Rebirth (29 page)

“Who?” Temar demanded.

Natalie and Rula exchanged a long look, but no one answered him.

“I don’t care about your rules. They have Shan, and I want to know who.”

It took a long time before Natalie answered. “It’s probably one of the religious separatist groups. It could be a personal rights extremist.”

Temar looked from one woman to the other, struggling to get his mind around the fact that more than one group wanted to blow them up. He felt like he couldn’t breathe… like he was in the middle of a huge sandstorm and he didn’t have a veil to keep him from choking to death on reality.

Natalie sighed. “Temar, this war isn’t between two alliances anymore—it’s between two alliances and about a half-dozen terrorist groups that are all trying to blackmail one planet or another into changing sides or breaking away. The two alliances have declared a sort of awkward truce and hands-off policy. The insurrectionists and rebels and terrorists definitely have not.”

“And now they have Shan.” Temar struggled to think this through. They would want goods or maybe leverage over Livre. Whatever they wanted, it wasn’t worth Shan’s life. Temar had to make that clear.

“The team will get them back,” Rula promised from the other side of the corridor. The ship shivered again, a low wailing filling the air.

“Gravity’s coming back. Get your feet under you,” Natalie advised him. Temar barely had time to do that before the whole ship jerked and heaved and then gravity returned, pulling him down so fast that Temar had to clench his teeth to stop from vomiting all over the deck.

“We need to clear the area.” Rula crossed the hall and got a hand under Temar’s arm, urging him down the hallway, but Temar braced himself.

“No. I’m staying here until they get Shan back safely.”

Rula gave him a withering glare.

“I don’t care,” he told her. “I’m staying.”

“If they have explosions in the area, they’ll need to move medical teams through here, and we’ll be in the way. That isn’t helping Shan. And it won’t help to make ourselves attractive secondary targets.”

Medical teams. Temar closed his eyes for a moment as panic rolled through him. “I want to see the captain,” he said as calmly as he could. Natalie and Rula couldn’t tell him what was going on. Based on the number of looks they’d already traded, he suspected they were skirting the rules by giving him as much information as they had. However, Temar wouldn’t entrust Shan’s safety to people he didn’t know and couldn’t trust.

Natalie answered first. “Temar, you don’t understand. We’re junior officers. We aren’t welcome on the bridge.”

“Because we’re junior officers?” Temar stared at Natalie. He couldn’t understand that. Anyone could go to a council. Even when he’d been young and untrained and ghosting through the shadows of glassblower tents trying to convince someone to let him apprentice—even then he’d had the right to go to the council.

“The captain is busy, Temar—too busy to worry about us. But he’ll move heaven and hell to get Ambassadors Melton and Polli back.” She reached out as though to touch him, but she pulled her hand back after Temar glared at it.

“Because they’re not junior officers?” Temar demanded, emphasizing the word “junior.”

“Temar, understand that we are a people very used to combat. You have to focus, secure the high-value targets, and minimize the distractions.”

“Like me.”

From the dramatic sigh, Temar could guess that Natalie did not want to have this conversation. Normally, Temar would back away from that kind of open dislike, but it would take more than some discomfort to make him give up on Shan. Pressing his lips together, he glared at her.

“Like all three of us,” she eventually offered. “Temar, rank is a good thing. The captain will do anything to get the ambassadors back. Ambassador Melton is the ranking officer on this ship. Other than matters of mechanical soundness, his decisions supersede the captain, and his safety is the paramount concern. Ambassador Polli is not far behind him in importance, and since he’s in the same room with Ambassador Melton, they will be rescued together. I promise that, Temar. You simply need to have faith in us. I know this is hard, but this is not the first terrorist attack we’ve seen.”

Temar clenched his teeth. Part of him wanted to let other people handle this. But every time he’d done that, it hadn’t ended well. He’d trusted Cyla and her stupid plan to prove that Young had stolen water. And he hadn’t. He’d trusted Shan to go chasing off across a desert, and if Naite hadn’t followed them, they’d be so very dead. And now Natalie wanted him to follow, and as much as Temar wanted to—and he desperately wanted someone else to be responsible—he couldn’t do it. He didn’t trust these people as far as he could throw them.

“I’m going to find the captain, so you can either show me where he is or I can wander around this ship poking random controls,” Temar announced.

“Temar,” Rula said in an almost disappointed voice as she stepped in front of him. Physically, she had the power. She could force him to go back to their quarters, but physical power wasn’t everything. Temar drew himself up and turned to Natalie, the real authority in this partnership.

“You’re wrong about me, so if you’re really interested in having an alliance with Livre, I want to see the captain now.”

“That isn’t a good idea.”

Temar swallowed. These people weren’t offering power, so he had to take some. Well, he’d certainly been around enough people who had modeled that for him. He smiled at Natalie. “I don’t care. Your preferences and requests are not my first, second, or third concern, and I will see the captain now. Yes, Shan was on the governing council, and he is a well-respected man on Livre. However, I’m more well-known, and I’m the second or third wealthiest man on that planet. I personally know every man and woman that sent trade goods up with us.” He was technically telling the truth, even if it was a shade of the truth that wouldn’t hold up to the full sun. Maybe he had some talent for lying, because Natalie was staring at him, her eyebrows drawn.

“You’re that senior?”

Then again, maybe he didn’t have talent, because she didn’t sound convinced. “We don’t think of rank the way you do. Shan and I would make any decisions together. He has more experience than I do. However, he would cut off his own arm before making a decision without me.” Temar wasn’t shading the truth on that statement.

Natalie traded a confused look with Rula. She might talk about how rank determined worth, but she seemed willing to ignore rank easily enough when it came to Rula. For the first time, Temar could see what had made Shan assume they were lovers.

“Luck of the stars,” he cursed softly. “I had to get stuck up here with people who can’t see that other cultures don’t have the same rules.” He channeled Naite’s glare as he considered Natalie. Sure enough, she blushed all the way up to the tops of her ears. With her long brown hair pulled back, Temar could see the way they pinked up.

“Temar, I understand that you’re worried about Shan,” Natalie said in that tone of voice he’d often heard use parents use when their children’s lying was particularly transparent. Temar could feel a hard bubble of hysteria building in his stomach as he thought about how much Ben would have appreciated being challenged. In another universe, if circumstances had been just a little bit different, that’s who Natalie would have dealt with.

“Believe what you want,” Temar told her. “I’m going to find the captain. If you touch me, I will consider that an act of violence.” Temar didn’t add that he was close enough to a panic attack that he also might scream, flail, and huddle in the corner with his arms around his knees. He wanted to do that. He really did. However, he strode forward, forcing Rula to back away to the side of the hall as she tried to avoid touching him.

“Temar, you’ll never find the captain,” Natalie called after him.

Temar turned around. “Maybe not, but I’m going to enjoy causing a lot of trouble while I try. I don’t like having my demands questioned by”—he looked Natalie up and down, feeling slimy as he mimicked Ben’s old gesture—“junior officers,” he finished, making it clear that he considered her beneath him.

Natalie stepped forward, her voice a desperate whisper. “Ambassador Gazer, you don’t want to do this.”

He looked her in the eye. “No, I don’t. I also don’t want to lose my partner and I don’t want to put up with being manipulated and I would rather not walk around the ship verbally attacking every person I meet as I press random buttons hoping to break something really vital. I don’t want any of that, but some things are more likely than others.” Temar raised his eyebrows and waited for her response. Natalie pressed her lips together so tightly that they turned white.

“Fine,” she finally answered, “I will give you an invitation to meet the captain, but one word from him, and Rula will physically drag you off the bridge and throw you into a cell until we can straighten this out. We have laws against refusing orders during an attack and against making threats.”

“I can’t say I care what your laws say,” Temar responded.

“And I thought you were the nice one,” Natalie said with a sigh.

Temar didn’t believe that. Natalie had assumed that he was the unimportant one. She’d focused so much on Shan that he doubted she’d given him two seconds of consideration, and normally, he’d be fine with that. Getting her full attention this way made him feel like his stomach had twisted inside out and his ribs were shrinking so that everything in his chest didn’t fit. He’d rather be in the background, but he wouldn’t stand back and let these people handle anything.

Natalie started down the hall, her long legs carrying her faster than Temar could follow without breaking into a trot. Even though she was only a couple of inches taller, she made good use of it. Rula stayed at his side, her hand resting on her belt, and Temar suspected she had some sort of weapon in there. This time when they hit the main cylindrical section, people rushed by in either direction. No one actually ran, but the sense of energy came from the silent dodging of bodies around each other and the variety of uniforms. Temar had seen the brown uniform that most of them wore, but there were an alarming number of white uniformed men with large weapons and green uniformed men and women with strange equipment, some so large that two of them were carrying it.

Pausing for a second to allow a tight group of four men to pass, Natalie headed right, detouring around a man with blood covering him, supported by people on either side. The sharp stink of blood made Temar swallow down the bile that threatened to rise. The man was walking, so he probably wouldn’t die, and Temar had seen death in his life, but he couldn’t help but imagine Shan being injured.

When Ben had threatened Cyla, Temar had felt utterly trapped. The threat had held him more securely than any rope, and he could feel it tightening around him again. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t lie down and let some terrorist group rape him, literally or metaphorically.

“Here.” Natalie opened a door to show a tiny space behind it. It took Temar’s brain a half second to supply the word “elevator.” By that time Rula had already gotten in, and Natalie was looking at him with a frown. Temar followed Rula and caught hold of one of the curved handles. When Natalie got in, she manipulated the controls, and Temar’s body jerked so hard to the right that he physically crashed into Rula. He’d expected up and down, but this was a side-to-side elevator. Rula gave him a sympathetic look as Temar struggled for balance.

“Last chance to stop, Temar. We can handle this.” Natalie didn’t add that Temar would screw everything up, but Temar thought that was implied.

“This is my partner and my fight,” Temar said with far more confidence than he felt.

Natalie turned her back on him and stood with her nose to the wall door until the elevator jerked to a stop so sharply that Temar wrenched his shoulder trying to not fall down. The door opened, and Temar looked into the bridge and into the barrels of guns from two white-uniformed men who had drawn weapons on them.

Chapter 26

NATALIE held both hands up, and Temar hurried to do the same. “Protocol Officer Natalie Aral, reporting to the bridge on the orders of Ambassador Temar Gazer,” she said. One of the men tilted his head to the side and did something with his ear without lowering his weapon. Taking his cues from Natalie and Rula, Temar stood in place, his hands up.

The man with his head tilted said something to his partner, and they both dropped their weapons so that they pointed to the ground. “You don’t have authorization for bridge access.”

“Ambassador Gazer demanded access.”

The man searched Temar with a cold gaze, and Temar stepped forward. “Where’s the captain?”

“Unavailable.”

“Then he better find a way to make himself available, or I will invalidate all trades and demand the return of all Livre trade goods.” Temar narrowed his eyes and silently prayed that no one else pointed out that he had no way to enforce that rule. Naite got away with ordering a whole lot of people around, not because he had any authority, as an unskilled worker, but because no one really wanted to cross him. Temar worried that he might not be able to pull it off without another foot of growth and a good hundred pounds, but after a second of looking at Temar, the guard nodded to his partner and turned to head across the bridge.