Wreck of the Nebula Dream (25 page)

At this announcement, his torturers exclaimed in astonishment, some edging away from the table for a moment, as if he was going to suddenly go on the offensive. It was well known that SF operators were never captured alive, or died immediately under interrogation rather than risk betraying secrets. Suspicious, even at this juncture, the chief interrogator came to the rack, adjusted a control here and there to ratchet up the pain he imagined Nick was enduring, and demanded in pidgin Basic to know why, if he was Special Forces as he claimed, he had not committed suicide long before now.

“Thought – thought I could resist you,” Nick whispered out, at Damais’s command, giving words to her carefully constructed scenario. “You – you have my wife and children in there. I couldn’t leave them alone, at your mercy. Do what you want with me, but spare my family. Don’t – don’t torture them.”

He was sure the pirates could understand his plea, since they’d encountered the sentimental humans before. It was a source of much amusement to the Shemdylann, who were known to eat their own young at times.

All activity ceased for five long minutes while the pirate captain was summoned, in light of this unprecedented coup – the capture and apparently successful initial interrogation of a Special Forces operator. Concentrating on breathing, Nick lay on the framework, trying not to think, trusting Lady Damais to handle whatever was going to happen next.

The pirate captain yanked the technician away from the torture rack with such force the struts shook and threatened to collapse. Leaning over Nick, his scaly face only a few inches away, his breath like rotting fish, the Shemdylann said, “I’ll keep your wife and children alive, as long as you behave and obey us. You understand me, Special Forces Captain Jameson? I’m sure your authorities will want to ransom your cowardly husk.”

Weakly, Nick nodded. “And the others, the old woman, the D’nvannae, the girl – her father is rich. You’ll ransom them, too?” he asked, voice barely audible. His throat was raw.

Considering the request, his enemy licked leathery lips with a flickering yellow tongue and then nodded slowly, eyes nictating. “Yes,” he said. “I think I’ll do as you suggest, human. I’m strictly cruising for my own profit this trip. Certainly the plunder in this hulk will enrich me beyond the biggest dreams of most hatchlings. But there may be other value to be found in you, beyond the obvious.” He paused, seeming to consider alternatives, all of them pleasing.
 

Nick focused on breathing again while his enemy contemplated.

“Perhaps I’ll barter your lives for concessions from the Sectors, rather than mere credits. I must evaluate this development.” Like a whip, his tongue flashed across Nick’s cheek, tasting the human’s sweat as if it were a delicacy. “There are things in the Sectors I might prize.”

Cheek burning, Nick recoiled against the clamps and shackles as best he could. Old tales about certain Mawreg client races said they found humans to be good eating. At this moment, Nick was a believer.

The pirate straightened, apparently satisfied. Hypno-trained in Shemdylann years ago for a clandestine mission, Nick was able to catch most of the crisp instructions the officer gave his subordinates. “Enough for now. Return him to the cell. We must get in touch with certain parties, negotiate for a transfer to them. Oh, this one will bring us even greater rewards than we reap by sacking this vessel. This human prisoner shall bring us honor and standing in the Councils, the rare kind bought only by drinking the blood of the most deadly enemies.”

“Shall we bring out the other male to interrogate now?” Eager, excited, the subordinate’s neck frill pulsated.

“No, fool. We do nothing more with any of them until we’ve made contact, negotiated, gotten instructions. The masters may want the D’nvannae to experiment on, as well as this human. Torturing the Brother when the masters would never hear of it was permissible, but if they come to take the greater prize, this traitorous Special Forces weakling, they’ll learn from him we also had a D’nvannae. The masters have long posted a special request for one of the Brotherhood to be captured for their close examination. They won’t be happy if we preempt their express wishes.”
 

The pirate captain actually shivered, skin flushing a pale red at the idea of the implacable Mawreg wrath falling on his head. “No, take this man to the others. Let him think my offer of ransom holds good. He’ll tell his loved ones the same lie for me, which will keep them all easy to control, unsuspecting, until the Mawreg get here and take him on board their own ship. They have ways to keep him alive, and the D’nvannae, too, despite whatever it is these humans do to kill themselves.”

Flooding through Nick in a rush, excruciating pain tore a shout from his already ravaged throat. Agony in every extremity signaled sudden, inexplicable abandonment by Damais. He couldn’t focus on translating the alien dialect, couldn’t do anything but convulse in the grip of the torture device’s emanations as it cycled down. Hanging on to sanity and consciousness with grim determination, using all the techniques he’d been taught, Nick swore to himself he’d make it through this last few minutes.
 

 
The pirate captain gave the hoarse, barking noise that was his equivalent of a laugh. Flicking his tongue across Nick’s cheek one more time, he savored the taste of the fear and pain in the beads of human sweat. Still laughing, the alien stood aside while his crew released Nick from the rack to fall on the deck, unable to control his nerves and muscles in any way.

Carrying Nick to the prison chamber, the aliens threw him in, face down, not bothering to restrain him, apparently assuming the torture had so destroyed him that he’d remain virtually helpless.
 

As soon as the door clanged shut, Mara rushed to Nick, rolling him over, like a breakable piece of statuary, and then a minute later helping him sit up. She hugged him, obviously trying not to cry. Her red eyes and blotchy face showed the emotional storm she’d endured while he was under the pirates’ torture.

And she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

 
Her touch brought fresh pain since his nerve endings were raw all over, but he knew she needed the skin-on-skin reassurance that they were together again. And so did he. Reaching to hug her awkwardly, finding it hard to command his muscles, Nick took a deep breath of her perfume, and then another. It helped somewhat to clear his head.

 
“Oh Lords of Space, I knew they must be killing you.” Mara wept on his shoulder. Raising her head, she kissed him. “I thought I’d never see you again. I finally prayed you
would
let yourself die, rather than go on enduring whatever they were doing to you.”

“We could hear you yelling,” Twilka said. “The poor children were so scared. Well, so was I.”

“It was the Lady Damais, she had total control over everything I did or said.” Nick’s voice was raspy, but he was more in control of his body with each passing minute, the residual pain receding. His throat, however, felt as if he’d swallowed the acid they’d injected into him. “Where is –”

He looked across the small chamber, seeing Twilka weeping also, the two children huddled against her, both crying. More skeletal than he’d ever seen her before, Lady Damais lay stretched out on the bins, pale, eyes closed. The stuffed bear was beneath her head as a pillow.

Nick felt a flash of panic.
I have to talk to her, thank her
. “She’s not –”

“No, not yet,” Mara caught at his arms as he attempted to rise. “Slowly, soldier, let me help. She may have shielded you from the full brunt of whatever they did, but you’re not exactly yourself.” As Nick regained his feet, she reached up a gentle hand, tentatively touching the two ulcerated marks on his right cheek. “What –?”

“Venom burn. I’ll explain another time,” Nick promised. Grateful to be holding her again, he kissed her quickly, a brush on the lips. “The Lady –”

Leaning on Mara, Nick staggered to the rear of the cramped pantry, sinking to his knees beside Damais’s makeshift bed. As Nick and Mara approached, Twilka moved the children out of the way.

“It went well,” Damais said, her voice so soft and thready, Nick had to lean over to hear. She kept her eyes closed but reached out with one hand.

Twining his callused fingers with her soft ones, Nick gave a gentle squeeze. “You’re amazing. I didn’t feel a thing, other than your presence, until the last few minutes.”

“I apologize. My strength wanes with the moments of my life. I had to borrow life force from the Brother to hold long enough, but it was imperative to make your resistance believable to the enemy. A man such as you would not break easily.”

Nick looked at Khevan, still restrained in the Shemdylann cords. The Brother smiled weakly, nearly as pale under his space tan as the old Mellurean. Even the rampant tattoo of the Red Lady on his cheek was less flamboyantly scarlet. “She Whom I Serve was gracious enough to permit me to assist Lady Damais.”

“Thanks, I owe you,” was all Nick could say before turning to the rapidly fading Damais. “We have to get out of here, use the time you bought for us.”

She opened her eyes, now nearly grayed out with total exhaustion. It was hard to remember how brilliantly blue they had glowed when he first met her. Staring into Nick’s face, Damais smiled slightly. With tremendous effort, she stroked a feather-light touch along his cheek, healing the venom burns. Moved beyond words by the sacrifice she’d made for him, for them all, Nick kissed her palm.

Beside him, Mara was weeping silently.

Breath rattling harshly in her throat, Damais struggled to speak one more time, then abandoned words for the mental linkage her race specialized in.
So very like my son… Don’t grieve for me
–

The words fading like echoes in his mind, Nick had to fight not to spiral into death with her, consciously breaking the mental bond they’d shared before he became enmeshed in the flight of her spirit to whatever awaited on the other side.
I’m going to die with her if I don’t get free.

“Don’t follow her!” Tugging at him frantically, Mara yelled at him in her fright at what she was seeing happen to him. She hauled off and slapped him across the face with enough force to rock his head back. “Nicholas Jameson, don’t you dare leave me now!”

Hand to his jaw, Nick reassured her. “It’s all right, Mara. I’m all right. Thanks. She wasn’t
trying
to take me with her. We were so tightly linked, after what we went through together for the past hours –”

Taking her final breath, Lady Damais, one of the highest-ranking Minds of Mellure, squeezed Nick’s hand tight. Staring beyond him into a distance no living soul could penetrate, a slight smile on her face, she said, “Negarret, my son, you came for me,” and died.

Nick laid her softly wrinkled hand at her side, bowing his head for a minute, consumed with loss and anger, and hatred directed equally at SMT and the pirates. He swore a blistering oath.

“My brother,” Khevan said, “we must not squander her gift to us. She wouldn’t want us to use one minute in mourning, not now. There will be time for proper mourning later.”

Unable to speak past the lump in his throat, Nick nodded. He stared at the old lady’s face one last time, taking note of how peaceful she appeared, not fierce and forbidding any longer.

Nick reached for the teddy bear, gently lifting it out from under Damais and moving to give it to Gianna. “Here, sweetheart, the Lady doesn’t need this anymore. But it was kind of you to share it with her.”

Accepting her beloved stuffed animal, Gianna handed it to her brother, who was waiting at her side.

A minute later, Nick accepted the blaster Paolo gave him, retrieved from its simple hiding place. Automatically, he checked the charge before walking over to Khevan, his expression grim. “I’ll use the lowest setting possible, but it may singe a bit, getting those cords off. No other way.”

“Don’t apologize – I understand. Just do it,” Khevan said.

It was the work of a few seconds to get Khevan free, after which Twilka spent five minutes helping him massage the circulation into his arms and legs. The Brother gritted his teeth against the pain, only shaking his head when Nick asked how he was doing. “It is nothing as compared to what you endured, even though you were shielded by the Lady’s powers. I’ll be fine.”

Nick was already busy melting through the magnetic-locking mechanism, using a slightly higher setting on the Mark 27, praying to the Lords of Space the pirates hadn’t bothered to post a guard this time either, thinking the prisoners well secured and helpless. The pirates were suspicious of each other, too, greedy, each eager to grab more than his fair share of the tremendous riches left on the
Nebula Dream
for the plundering. No one wanted to be stuck guarding a room full of captives.
Even a Shemdylann captain can only control his crew so far in the presence of such a vast trove, lucky for us.

When the lock gave way and the door slid open a few inches, Nick reconnoitered the corridor. “Coast is clear. Ready to move out, people?”

“And the plan is?” Moving stiffly, Khevan came to stand beside Nick. Harsh, raw, red marks on his wrists showed where the cords had bitten deeply into his skin.

“Get to the grav lift. The Shemdylann can’t stand grav lifts – it screws with their molecules. I’ve seen them tortured to death that way, in fact,” Nick said. A wave of uncharacteristically savage satisfaction flooded over him.
I’m not the ice-cold operator today, not anymore. Well, fuck it.
“We head to the shuttle bay and finish our original plan – take one of the remaining ships and go like a Denebian bat out of the Seven Hells.”