Chosen (HMCS Borealis Book 2) (41 page)

Captain Dillon shrugged.
 
"You're welcome.
 
I'm just hoping not to get shot.
 
Anything better than that is a 'win' at this point."
 
He watched her for a while, the smile reappearing on his face; he was clearly thinking about something.
 
"So," he said at last, "I can't find too many Heather Turnbulls like you.
 
I'm searched quite a few databases."

"Yes," she breathed.
 
So, he already had an idea.
 
"My real last name's Gibson.
 
I'm Heather Gibson."

The Captain opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again for a few moments.
 
"Gibson.
 
As in, the Defence Minister?"

"Yeah.
 
That's my dad."

"Ah," said Dillon, nodding.
 
"I see."
 
His eyes were watching hers.
 
"You ran away?
 
You don't want him to find you?"

"I hate him," she said.
 
The words came out before she even thought about it, and she realised how bitter she sounded..
 
"I don't want him to know where I am.
 
He'll try to ruin my life."

"Ah," said Dillon again.
 
Glancing down at his desk, he picked up one of the two remaining sealed Tunnel cells, and handed it toward her.
 
"Just unscrew the end."

Elan sat on the edge of the metal bed.
 
The room in the warship's medical bay had been cooled to a temperature that was comfortable for him, but he was trapped in it.
 
His ruined coldsuit was in a cabinet next to the bed; instead, he wore the blue shirt and pants of the ship's crew.
 
The cloth was sturdy but coarse against his skin.
 

Ever since Heather had left the medical bay for a quick 'look around', — promising to return and tell him what she'd seen — he'd been bored.
 
For a while, he'd browsed the human public data networks, but a few minutes ago the network connection had been lost.
 
Now all he could read were stored pages he'd already seen.

So instead he sat on the bed, looking through the glass wall at the rest of the medical bay.
 
The only person there was Master Seaman Singh — so called despite being a woman, which he concluded was another human idiosyncrasy — and she was immersed in some work at her own terminal.
 
Every now and then she glanced up, made eye contact and smiled, and once or twice she'd come in and see if he needed anything.
 
She was very pleasant, and had taken the time to examine all of his cuts, bumps and bruises before assuring him that, apart from some lightly bruised ribs, he was going to be fine.

Until they got to Palani Yaal La however, he would remain here, a prisoner of his own biology.
 
Without a coldsuit, the interior of the warship was much too hot for him.
 
He could start meditating to raise his own body temperature to a compatible level, but they'd arrive at the homeworld long before he was finished.
 
Still, he thought, it was probably the last quiet time he'd have to himself.
 
He closed his eyes, holding his hands loosely in his lap and allowing his thoughts to centre in his mind.

No sooner had he begun to meditate, than a noise interrupted him.
 
Muffled and distant through the glass wall, he heard the chirping of the medical bay's door.
 
Perhaps Heather had returned, he thought, as someone walked into the medical bay.

It was the Tassali.
 
He watched her as she greeted and spoke with Singh, though he couldn't hear what they were saying.

The Exile, some called her.
 
The Traitor, said others.
 
This woman had done the unthinkable, the impossible:
 
abandoned her people to live among the 'savage' humans.

She was tall and elegant, like a marble statue.
 
Beautiful, with cobalt blue hair and flawless white skin, the envied marks of beauty among the Palani people.
 
Her white and blue robes were immaculate, and she wore no coldsuit.
 
Next to the brown-skinned Singh she was gleamingly white, like newly fallen snow.

Singh pointed to one of the examination tables in the medical bay, where a heavy overcoat lay folded on the bed.
 
The Tassali nodded as if in thanks, then picked up the coat and walked toward the door of Elan's room.

She made eye contact with him, and gave a slight smile.
 
He returned the gesture, as her lips silently formed human words:
 
May I come in?
 
Elan nodded enthusiastically.
 
He'd been hoping she would come by.
 
There was so much he wanted to ask.
 
He knew he could speak to Heather about anything, but what if he wanted to talk
about
her?

The Tassali paused between the inner and outer doors, her gloved fingers fastening the rows of brass buttons down the front of the heavy blue overcoat.
 
She opened the inner door and entered, letting it close behind her.

Elan was about to speak, when the Tassali gave a short bow.
 
"Elanasal Palani," she said, her voice calm and measured.
 
She spoke in Palani, with the preferred Temple accent.
 
"I am honoured."

"Please no," he said, "don't do that.
 
I'm just—"

"Just what, Elanasal?" she asked.
 
There was a look in her eyes that he couldn't place.
 

"I'm just me," he said.
 
"I don't… I'm not special."

"But you are," said the Tassali, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.
 
"You are the product of millennia of advancement."

"I don't feel like it," he said. "I'm not an advancement."

"But you are a symbol to the Palani people."

"I don't want to be," said Elan.

The Tassali smiled then, a new and genuine smile, one that he hadn't seen on a Palani face in a very long time.
 
"What?" he asked.

There was a lilt to her voice, almost like laughter.
 
"In many ways, you
are
an advancement, Elanasal.
 
You are wiser than the people who created you.
 
I am happy for you, and for what you will become."

"But I don't want any of that," said Elan.
 
He felt like a prisoner watching his cell door begin to swing shut.

The Tassali nodded to him, a sympathetic smile on her face.
 
"I know you don't," she said.
 
"And I didn't want what I received, either.
 
But then I found a place I belong, and more importantly, a person I belong with.
 
It has made all the difference."

Elan glanced over the Tassali's shoulder, into the medical bay beyond.
 
Singh was working on a device at her desk, some sort of armband.
 
"I have," he said at last.
 
It felt good to say it out loud, like it made it more real to him.
 
"I do belong with her."
 
He looked back into the Tassali's blue eyes.
 
"You know about Heather, then."

"Yes.
 
And what she carries with her."

"How—"

"I spoke to the doctor on the station, and used
Iyurele
.
 
She told me more than I desired to know.
 
For that, I apologise."

Elan's shoulders slumped.
 
"So, you know how complicated everything has become.
 
I'm afraid I've made a mess of everything."

"I don't agree," said the Tassali.
 
"In fact, I think you two are creating something wonderful.
 
You really are advancing the Palani as a race."

"They won't see it that way," said Elan.
 
He began to wring his fingers together in his lap.
 
"The Pentarch won't be happy.
 
Neither will the people.
 
They won't let her stay."

"How do you know that?"

He didn't, he had to admit.
 
Not for sure.
 
But how could it possibly work?
 
Allowing the Chosen One, the Elanasal Palani of scripture, to keep a human woman in his life?
 
Which was to say nothing of having her receive any official status.
 
If Heather were made a consort, there might be riots.
 
No, it would make much more sense for the Pentarch to merely get rid of him, and tell the people that the Chosen One had died.
 
It would be so much easier.
 
Then they could create another batch, and hope for one that was more compliant.
 
"There's no future for her," he said.
 
His voice had a crack in it that he hadn't intended.
 
"There's no future for either of us.
 
I don't care if I've doomed myself, but not her.
 
She doesn't deserve this."

Two warm hands gently wrapped around his fingers.
 
The Tassali was hot to the touch, even through her gloves, and it surprised Elan.
 
His mouth fell open in surprise.
 
"I… you're so warm," he said.

There was a kindness in the Tassali's face.
 
It wasn't the face of treachery, or blasphemy, or any of the things he'd heard about her.
 

"People can change, Elanasal.
 
Even Palani."

The Chief looked up from her console.
 
"Captain, Palani Yaal La in one minute."

Dillon nodded in acknowledgement.
 
Standing next to his chair, he hooked one finger into the collar of his dress uniform and pulled it around his neck, trying to loosen it.
 
Apparently, his neck was a bit thicker than the last time he'd worn it.
 
At least the jacket still fit well.
 
Maybe even a bit looser around the waist; he'd had to adjust the belt.
 

As his eyes scanned the bridge, he saw a lot of tense faces focusing on their consoles.
 
All the bridge officers were present; it wasn't even his normal watch, but he needed to be here.
 
Kalla stood next to him, while Tremblay was watching over the Chief's shoulder.
 

Under the mechanical clock stood Amba, radiant in her robes and tiara.
 
She made eye contact with him, and though they exchanged no words, he felt he understood her from the expression on her face:
 
she was tense and anxious about returning to her homeworld.
 
The same world that, a year and a half ago, had chased her away in shame and humiliation for revealing a part of the Palani history that they wanted kept buried.
 
For that, she had lost the life she knew, her family, and her culture.
 
If he and the
Borealis
hadn't found her, he didn't know what would've happened to her.
 
And now
Borealis
was bringing her back.
 
It would be like rubbing salt in an old wound, but he hoped the people they met on the surface would at least treat her with dignity and respect.
 
Assuming they made it to the surface.

"Five seconds," said the Chief.

"Aye," he said, turning back toward the front windows.
 
Whenever they came out of FTL, it felt like the ship was sighing.
 
He didn't know if it was the change in the magnetic fields, or the sound of the engines winding down, or the stars finally coming to a halt.
 
In front of them, the homeworld of the Palani appeared:
 
a smooth white ball, with a broad blue-and-brown band around its tilted equator.
 
Oceans and continents filled the band, occupying the space between massive polar ice caps.
 
Light from the Palani star lit the daytime half of the planet; the dark side glittered with the lights of cities, lining the shores of the great continents and extending far onto the ice caps.
 
A faint ring, so fine at this distance that it looked like dust, circled the planet's equator, far above the surface.

"Contacts!" said the sensor technician.
 
"Hundreds of space platforms.
 
Cruisers, frigates, dreadnoughts.
 
Wow, twenty dreadnoughts and counting, sir.
 
They're huge.
 
And—"

"Shut it off," snapped Dillon.
 
"Stop scanning."
 
He saw the Chief turn toward him.
 
"We're not scanning them.
 
We don't walk into a stranger's house and start taking pictures of all their stuff.
 
Passive only."

The Chief returned her eyes to her display, and started poking at it.
 
"Passive only, aye."
 
She kept tapping at the console.
 
"About three quarters of the ships we saw aren't active, sir.
 
I don't even think their reactors are up."

"Huh," said Dillon.
 
"Well, we won't let on that we've noticed that.
 
Sensors?
 
Anyone coming to check us out?"

"Aye sir," said the technician.
 
"Three dreadnoughts, six frigates, all on an intercept course.
 
We're being scanned, sir… no, wait.
 
The scanning…"
 
The technician glanced up from his console.
 
"Sir, they start scanning us, but the scans stop immediately.
 
They keep retrying.
 
I have no idea why, sir."