Noble (2 page)

She kissed them both on the cheeks and headed upstairs to pack her bags. Putting her family and her world at risk was not something she was interested in. Learning that she wasn’t completely human was another hit.

She needed some time to think, and a spacecraft was the perfect place to do it. She wouldn’t have to shut out her world; she wouldn’t be on her world.

Myra was alone on the shuttle with the exception of the pilot. She got up and heaved her bag on to her shoulder.

Music was blasting in her ears, and it kept her in a world of her own as she left the shuttle and was taken down the hall by a solemn, pale green woman in a bodysuit.

The music kept her from panicking, like it always did. Recruiter Norz had provided her with a crystalline player for her music library that would not require charging.

The woman showed her to her quarters and tapped her ear.

Sighing, Myra pulled her earbuds out and looked at the woman.

“Thank you, Miss Musgrave. This is your com station. Your family has been given a matching terminal, and this is the contact location identifier. You can use it anywhere.”

The woman ran through the small dispensing unit in her quarters that would provide her with food for the next two days. She was basically under arrest until the Kameraet came to get her.

When the woman showed her the research terminal, Myra finally got interested. The moment she was alone, she researched what she could, and the more she learned, the more her stomach churned.

Assassins, spies and armies for hire marked what had once been a fairly well-rounded society. The Day clan had been targeted to remove them from power. Several members had tried to run, but they had been hunted until they were extinct in two decades. The one member of the clan that had escaped was reported dead when his ship crashed on a primitive world. Surak Day didn’t have an image in the records, but the picture of his grandfather—Ekohart Day—had the same definite stamp that was on Myra’s own face, even after all those passing generations.

Well, that was something to tell her grandparents. She used the code, and after three minutes, her grandparents were huddled around the terminal, listening as she told them what she knew.

Her grandfather wrote everything down, and her grandmother gasped at the image of their ancestor.

Myra didn’t share what she knew of the clans of Night and Eclipse. That wasn’t something that she wanted her only family to think about. Death and disappearance surrounded the history of the Day Clan, and that was just the men. The women simply ceased to be on record. Myra hoped that they got away.

She chatted with her family for a bit and then logged off, citing exhaustion. Air kisses were blown and the screen went dark.

Myra went to the dispenser, got a cup of coffee and settled back at the information station, reading as much as she could about the people who were coming to pick her up.

When she finished, as tired as she was, she had trouble falling asleep.

The learning flash helped her work through documents that didn’t translate well into English. Two more days of learning all she could about the Kameraet and the species they gathered around them made her feel that she was not going to be surprised by what she would be facing in eighteen hours. The ship was coming in, and she just had one more night before she was launching herself into space.

No one at the base was sure what to do with her, so they were leaving her alone. She was left with her research and her music, and she immersed herself in both.

When the knock struck her door, she jolted to her feet. “I will be right there.”

Myra took a deep breath, grabbed her bag and opened the door.

There was a wall of matte black chest plates in front of her, each attached to a large male with a mask covering his eyes and cheekbones with black cloaks hanging to their ankles, the hoods drawn up.

“Um, hello.”

One of the men extended his hand, and she recognised the small scanner from her time in medical. She held out her hand and turned her wrist up for the sample to be drawn, tugging her sleeve out of the way.

He carefully pressed the scanner to a spot near her elbow, and she winced as the sample was taken. A moment later, the scanner chirped and a light glowed blue.

Instead of the men relaxing, they sprang into action, surrounding her and marching her along the halls to the launch area.

There was no one else in the halls, which was extremely odd. Even when she had arrived in the middle of the station night, there had been folks moving around.

Six men surrounded her, and she just marched behind the cloak in front of her until he and the others stopped. Myra tried to stop, but since she couldn’t see anything, she ran into the back in front of her.

“Oof.” She staggered and recovered herself, but the man she had struck turned toward her, his lips curving into a smile.

He didn’t say a word, merely turned back to the wall she could barely see in front of him, and he entered a code into the lock. They started to move again.

Two security locks were passed, and finally, Myra could see something. A sleek black ship was waiting for them.

This was it. Either she went forward, or she tried to find a way out of this. Her mind scrambled around as it had been doing since Norz came to the house. She couldn’t find a way out. She was going to disappear and no one was here to wish her luck or see her go.

The men around her didn’t let her mull it over. They walked up the metal pathway and into the ship without hesitation. That was one of the characteristics of the Night clan. They did not hesitate.

She was marched down another hallway until a door opened, and her wall of men parted to let her walk inside.

The room was surprisingly wide, had a small couch, a dispenser and a terminal. The moment that Myra stepped inside, the door slid shut behind her. Locked in again.

“The day just keeps getting better and better.”

She dumped her duffel bag on the floor as the engines fired up. There was a folding seat flat against one wall, and she settled in, tightening the straps.

This was a shuttle, and it was going to approach one of the larger ships. She had no idea how long that would take.

When the minimal pull of the moon was done, she unbuckled, knelt on the floor and put her earbuds in. Music became her universe, and she turned her mind inward.

The men who had escorted her to her current quarters were definitely Night clan. She had seen enough images of them to know them on sight. Their deep, dark gazes told her that they were not the Eclipse clan. Those folk had eyes so pale as to be piercing white in dark skin.

The Night clan were the assassins, the Eclipse clan were the spies, and both were warriors for hire as well as invading armies. The role of the Day clan had been to rule, and there had been mention of the growth of the Kameraet being in their hands. Apparently, the other clans didn’t think so, because they had destroyed the Day clan to the last man.

She grimaced as she redid her last thought, well, all but one man. Why they wanted her now was still a mystery. Perhaps they wanted to kill her in public and stamp out her line once and for all.

Based on the progress on her playlist, she was locked in her own thoughts for about an hour when the ship she was in shivered slightly.

Sighing, she got to her feet and picked up her bag. She pulled out one earbud and tucked it into her shirt while she kept the other one in. She needed all the help that the music could give her.

Her muscles tightened when the door opened without warning. The dark gathering around her doorway was enough of a hint. Time to go.

They walked her back the way they had originally come. The wall of darkness was the same, and soon, the interior of a shuttle bay gave her something else to look at.

Her escort took her into the larger expanse of what had to be a warship, and they walked her to a door that turned out to be an office. Her guards parted, and she stared at the occupant of the space.

A man with white eyes and dark skin sat at the desk, and he smiled slightly. “Please, come into the medical centre, lady.”

Her mind was translating for her, but it took a while. “Medical centre?”

“Yes. We have to do a decontamination protocol as well as inoculations for our local diseases.”

It made sense, but she had been through the decontamination on Earth.

He stood, and his height made her blink. She had thought that the guards were tall, but he was over six and a half feet by several inches. The nine-foot ceilings now made a certain amount of sense.

He opened the door behind him, and he escorted her into the medical centre, a cubicle was set up for her with a solid wall keeping it from the view of anyone who came into the space.

“Lady, please remove everything and place it in this container. I will decontaminate it and return it to your quarters.”

She looked at him. “What will I wear instead?”

He blinked, those pale eyes looking right through her clothing. “There is a wrap on the medical bed. It will enable you to go through the necessary scans.”

Myra wrinkled her nose and kicked off her shoes before peeling off her socks. “Are you going to watch?”

“I am the primary physician on this vessel. You have nothing that I have not seen before.” But he turned his broad back.

She held her breath and stripped as quickly as she could until she was only wearing the recording device and her headphones. A moment later, she had untangled the medical wrap and was covered again.

“Done.”

He turned and looked at her music player. “That as well.”

She closed her fist. “It is my music. I don’t want to be without it.”

“I will decontaminate it here in the centre, and you can take it with you when you go.”

She unclenched her hand and dropped the player on the edge of the tray. He scooped it up and walked away with it.

Myra had never felt more naked.

He returned and beckoned her forward. “Please, come this way and stand in the scanner.”

Her feet were small compared to the footprints that were stamped into the machine. She leaned back against the padded metal rest, and when she was still, he set off the scanner.

Myra tensed as the light and sound went over and through her. It moved up and down for a minute, and then, it reset.

“Now, the decontaminator, please?” He showed her to the machine, and it did what it was supposed to do with a prickling light.

“Why doesn’t anyone touch me, even casually?” Myra asked what was foremost on her mind.

“It would be an insult to touch you. You are High Lady of the Day clan. You outrank everyone on this ship.”

“Oh. What is your name?”

“Medic Winfel.”

“Thank you. What is next, Medic Winfel?”

He smiled. “Inoculations.”

“Then proceed.”

She could see her music player and headphones in a small box under glowing light, and the sight kept her calm through a riot of injections administered at half a dozen points on her body.

“How sick are these going to make me?”

“You might have some fever, but if anything else happens, have your guard call me.”

She nodded and wiggled her toes. “Can I have my music player back?”

He retrieved it, and when she heard the familiar notes in her ear again, she sighed in relief.

“Your guard will take you to your quarters, and the captain will come and speak with you in an hour. Clothing has been provided.”

Myra nodded. “So I run around the ship in this wrap?”

“It isn’t very far.”

She sighed and headed for the door. Her clothing and bag were nowhere to be seen. Someone had to have snuck in while she was in one of the scanners. She shrugged and continued into the wall of her guard. In a minute, they were underway, and five minutes later, she was in her new room.
Oh joy.

Medic Winfel briefed the captain. “She is definitely Day clan and will be extremely powerful once she is woken. I have administered the primer already.”

Captain Dron nodded. “Good. I will provide her with the catalyst when I speak with her. How did she seem to you?”

“Surprisingly calm and in remarkable physical condition considering her appearance. She looks soft, but there is a fit body beneath those curves.”

“Surprising. From the information we were sent, it is not normal.” The captain looked over the reports and prints of the body scans.

“It might be a sign that she has a stronger pattern than we had anticipated, in which case, her awakening will be easier.” Winfel was relieved. It had been a matter of tension for him on the flight out that they were going to tear a woman apart at the genetic level based on a trace of Day DNA in her body.

The captain nodded and reached into his desk. “Let’s hope that this little item from Sek-Rah has stood the test of time.”

Winfel looked at the small box. “Has it been tested before?”

“In eight hundred years, we have never found a member of the Day clan to test it on, not that we were looking until five hundred years ago.”

“Should we wait until we reach home?”

Captain Dron shook his head. “No, we need her ready to assume her duties the moment that we land. There is no time to wait.”

Winfel nodded. “I will be standing by if anything is required.”

The captain jerked his head in dismissal, and Winfel was left wondering how the lady would do when she had to assume the genetic heritage she carried inside her.

* * * *

Myra looked up from her meditation when her door opened. Apparently, knocking was not of cultural importance.

The man who came in wore the badges of a ship’s captain, and he was not someone she had seen before. She rose to her feet and smiled brightly.

“Hello.”

“Greetings of the day to you, lady. I offer you this gift on behalf of the Kameraet people. It has been waiting for one of your kind for many centuries. I am delighted to be able to deliver it to you.”