Trapped On Talonque: (A Sectors SF romance) (41 page)

Nate and his opponent circled each other silently for a moment, then went at each other in another flurry of blows launched, parried, delivered with punishing force, twisting and turning on the plateau. Sarbordon tried to maneuver to where he could make a grab for a weapon, and Nate was determined to keep him from doing so.

Nate got in under the enemy’s guard and snapped his neck with one well-aimed blow. The ruler was dead before he hit the ground.
 

Shifting his focus to his next challenge, Nate eyed Nanzin. “Put the child down.”

Lolanta’s daughter shook her head wordlessly, Sharla locked in her arms, and stepped backward.

Nate walked toward the pair. The priestess retreated farther.

“It’s going to be all right,” Nate told the girl quietly. “I won’t let her hurt you, I promise.”

Sharla took a deep, gulping breath, focused on his face and nodded. “You’re my warrior.”

Nanzin stopped at the plateau’s crumbling edge, teetering over the abyss. Eyes wide and desperate, she glanced over her shoulder for a moment.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Nate lunged, ripping Sharla from Nanzin’s grasp with enough force to tear the child’s nightgown. The priestess, still clutching the torn fragment of fabric, plunged into the abyss. He heard her screaming as she fell, until the sound abruptly cut off.

Carrying Sharla carefully, Nate walked to Hatur. Daven had untied the children’s wrists from the long cord and then had freed his grandfather. Nate kissed the child on the forehead. “I admire your bravery.”
 

Hatur shrank away even as he took Sharla from Nate. “I’ve never witnessed such things as the battle you fought.” He looked past Nate. “What is your will now, Goddess?”

“I defer to you,” she said to Nate, coming to stand next to him.
 

Nate addressed his remarks to Thom. “Go offer the guards he left in the village a deal—surrender their weapons and leave the area, or the goddess will smite them. Judging by their sloppy discipline and how reluctantly the men took their orders, I expect the troopers’ll be only too happy to escape. I don’t want to shed any more blood today.” Nate addressed that last remark to Bithia as if they were the only two people on the plateau. Then he flicked his gaze to Thom. “Bring our gear, and we’ll be on our way. Sarbordon got in one good blow to my left knee. I can’t make it up and down either trail to the village again, not if I’m also going to climb to Fr’taray’s place today. While you’re gone, I’ll be figuring out some kind of knee brace.”

Thom touched Bithia’s elbow and nodded at Hatur, Daven and the children. “You’d best say something to them, ma’am, while I carry out my orders.”

“Yes, of course.” Bithia surveyed the plateau sadly and then addressed Hatur as Thom sprinted past them, taking the shortcut to the village. “I am sorry this place of peace has been desecrated by blood and death,” Bithia said, her voice low and regretful. “My warriors and I won’t be seen here again, once we’ve cleared the village of the other soldiers.”

“Where will you go?” Daven asked.

“To my father’s home on the mountain. I give you my blessings, if you’ll accept them.”

Hatur nodded, his dignity coming back slowly, his breathing easier. “Of course, Lady. You’ve done us no wrong, you and your warriors. I’ll see the plateau is reconsecrated at the proper time, after you’ve gone. We’ll give these men a proper burial also, whatever their sins were in life. We’ve been honored by your visit and your help in this dire situation. Our best wishes go with you.” He gathered the children. “Come, little ones, let’s get you to your parents, who must be anxious about you.”

Bithia watched the group straggle off the plateau, following the easier ceremonial trail. Sharla lingered, with Daven waiting to escort her. Staring at Bithia, the child wasn’t the least bit intimidated, only concerned for Nate. “Will my warrior be all right? Will you take care of him? He’s courageous and strong.”

“Yes, he is. I’ll watch over him for you, all right?”

“Forever? You promise?” Brow furrowed, Sharla seemed serious beyond her years as she extracted the pledge.

“Yes, forever.” Bithia treated the request with equal gravity.

Sharla ran to give her a hug and then skipped to take Daven’s hand. He nodded at Bithia, and then they too were gone, leaving Nate and Bithia alone.

She tugged at his hand. “Come inside the hut and let me help you with your knee. I don’t have any power left in the gilintrae, but at least I can provide moral support.”

“When Thom gets here with our supplies, there’ll be some painkillers in the medkit,” Nate said. “Which will also help.”

“Can you climb?” she asked, brow furrowed. “How badly did he injure you?”

“Let’s find out. But we can’t stay here—it’s too exposed. I’m confident I can manage the trail, not too much farther, right?”

Staring at the mountain, Bithia nodded. “I can’t believe how close I am after all this time.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The wind howled between the crags and crevasses as the afternoon progressed.

“Snow coming soon,” Thom said, pausing in the middle of the trail and checking the gray skies to the west.

“We’re nearly there,” Bithia promised, glancing at the sergeant, who’d been trudging directly behind her on the narrow trail. “My father and I never took more than an hour as you measure your time to hike to the facility from the meditation place. Of course, we didn’t make the trek in winter.”

“Or with a bad knee,” Nate said, leaning on the stick he’d fashioned into a cane. “I think I see our destination about a hundred yards ahead.” He pointed up the mountain flank. “Looks like a flyer tunnel door to me. I’m sure glad we didn’t have to climb all the way to the crater itself.” He studied her face for a moment, trying to evaluate how tired she might be. “Should we take a break for a moment and rest? There’s time. It isn’t going to start snowing right now.”

She laughed. “Get me this close to the place I’ve longed to be for countless centuries and then ask me if I want to rest? I can’t believe you even suggested such a thing.” She pushed past him on the trail and forged ahead.

“She’ll wear herself out,” Nate said to Thom as he climbed after her.

“No harm in a bit of overexertion as long as we can shelter inside this base for the night,” Thom said reasonably. “Only a problem if we was planning to climb down the mountain today. How’s the knee?”

“Doing all right. Nothing’s broken. I managed to roll with the force. Come on, she’s getting too far ahead of us, and she’s not thinking about climbing safety today.”

Nate finally caught up to Bithia when she stopped on a small ledge jutting out about two yards below the familiar massive flyer tunnel hatch. True to her promise, a small, one-person-sized door was set into the mountain below and to the right of the flyer entrance. The far side of the ledge, which in her time had provided easy access by foot, had crumbled away over the eons. This condition made progress tricky, requiring them to swing over to the smaller entry. Clambering inside once the door opened would be yet another challenge. Nate eyed the distances and the condition of the ledge and figured he and Thom could manage it and get her safely across too.

“Does this door respond to manual controls or only the gilintrae?” he asked, working the pack he’d been carrying off his shoulders and preparing himself for the next brief, but dangerous, stage of their journey.

A vivid set of symbols flashed into his head, taking him by surprise.
 

“It’s faster than explaining out loud,” she said, sinking onto a handy rock, apparently willing at last to rest.

“All right, no problem. I got out of the habit of receiving data directly. I can’t see any other choice here but for one of us to crawl over and key in the symbols. I’ll go, since we already know your skill set doesn’t include actual mountain climbing, my lady.”

“And I can’t read the symbols,” Thom said.

“Right, which leaves you to anchor me,” he said to Thom, then pointed a finger at Bithia. “Stay well back in case the ledge crumbles any further under my weight.”

“Can your knee take the pressure?” Thom asked as he got into position.

Nate shrugged. “It’ll have to.”

Once he’d linked by a safety rope to the sergeant, Nate climbed sideways across the mountain, going along a promising crevice in the rocks below the door and then managing to locate enough handholds and footholds to bring himself up the cliff to a point where he could steady himself beside the personnel entrance. Clinging with his right hand, toes of his boots dug firmly into the cracks in the cliff face, Nate activated the symbols left-handed.

For once on Talonque, an alien device responded promptly. The door unsealed with an audible hiss of escaping air and swung open with surprising force. Nate leaned over to peer inside.

“No lights,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “All clear in the passageway. No blockages as far as I can see. Time to get the lady on the safety line and transfer her over here.”

The maneuver was delicate work, and as she’d told him several times, Bithia lacked even basic mountain-climbing skills. Sheer desire to reach her goal drove her to make the transition from the ledge to where Nate waited, hand extended to catch her when she’d gotten close enough. Once she was safely inside, Nate and Thom managed to get themselves and their gear transported across the small gap and into the unlit access tunnel.
 

Nate and Thom keyed the hand lamps they’d brought along from the
Murphy
, drew their Mark 27s, and the three proceeded cautiously through the echoing talmere-lined tunnel into the mountain.

“Odd that the lights aren’t working for us,” Bithia remarked at least twice as she proceeded.

“Probably not a good sign,” Nate said. “Remember what we agreed about not having expectations.”

Another door loomed at the opposite end of the tunnel. Bithia keyed the symbols with a happy exclamation, and this portal opened as easily as the outer one had. The trio stepped into the huge expanse of a flyer hangar, larger than the one at Nochen. Flashing his hand lamp from side to side, Nate saw one sizable vehicle parked crookedly at the far end of the space.

“They left a flyer,” Bithia said excitedly as the beams of the lamps played over the shiny skin of the object.
 

“Probably for some compelling reason.” Thom, as usual, refused to be too optimistic. “In for repairs maybe.”

“Why aren’t the lights coming on the way they did at the Nochen facility? I’m more concerned about illumination at the moment,” Nate said. “This place is the same age as the Nochen facility, give or take a few months, right?”

Bithia nodded, barely visible in the beam of the lamp.

“We’d better check the pleikn chamber first,” Nate said. “If the expedition shut the power source down, then we aren’t going to be able to do much here beyond spending a night or two. I’d like to know now. Save the issue of the flyer’s viability for later. If we can’t depend on this place for a long-term home, then we’ll want to expend our own resources differently.”

“I agree.” Taking his hand lamp, she led them unhesitatingly out of the flyer bay into another unlit corridor. The distance wasn’t far to walk, but in the eerie gloom, breathing the stagnant air, it felt like forever to Nate before Bithia opened the next door, admitting them to a pleikn observation chamber. It was similar to the room at Nochen in design, but constructed on a bigger scale.

No blue power globe rotated on the other side of the crystal talmere shield.

Bithia stared in disbelief, flashing her lamp in all the corners. “Completely deactivated? I can’t believe this. We had three pleikn to run this place, with three spares. Why would someone take away all six? And yet leave the one in Nochen?”

Nate wondered if her people left the one in Nochen because whoever was in charge knew it was unbalanced and would self-destruct, given enough time. It didn’t square too well with what Bithia had said of her people, but then neither did their abandonment of her or the two corpses in the warehouse.

Thom’s considerations appeared to be in a more practical vein. “Spares, ma’am? Where would extras have been kept? Did you have any kind of auxiliary power source?”

“Auxiliary?”

“For emergencies, for backup,” he elaborated.

“There’s a system to provide power for the setup team, from their first day of landing and establishment until the pleikn were brought in and placed into service, but then the initial system was no longer needed.”

“Thom’s asking if the original system is still available.” Nate tried to bridge the momentary communication gap between his companions. “Or did your setup contractors take it with them when they completed their part of the job?”

“I imagine it must be here. Such things are not portable.” Dubious, Bithia apparently clung to the idea of having full, glorious power supplied by the pleikn. “The spare pleikn would have been here.” She flashed her hand lamp at the far corner, double-checking again that no containers of any type, much less power-generator shields, had escaped her first search.

“Show us the auxiliary?” Nate asked. He was patient with her, knowing this trip to the main base was more stressful for her than anything else since escaping from Nochen.