Read Mind Strike Online

Authors: Viola Grace

Tags: #Romance, #Science Fiction, #Space opera

Mind Strike (2 page)

 

* * * *

 

Skiria gasped as she woke in freefall. She was too far from the edge of the crevice to grab the stone and too far down to call for help. She fell endlessly, turning end over end toward the distant glow at the base of the slash in the skin of the world.

To her shock, she slowed and there was an upward pressure of wind against her cheeks. The pressure turned into a column, and she was pulled toward the cliff face, slowing until she could be yanked into a nearly invisible cavern wall.

There was still no one around her as the wind pulled her through the rough passageway. Flying had never been a fantasy of hers, but it beat falling.

She felt secure, so she closed her eyes. There was no light, so she was counting on her senses to tell her where the walls were and she really didn’t like how close the channel was to her body.

Time ceased to have meaning in the strange means of transport. She couldn’t tell if she had travelled meters or kilometers underground.

Light prickled across her skin, and she opened her eyes to see a mechanically created light streaming out of the door of a silvery expanse. She couldn’t really tell what she was being pulled toward, but the hall she was in suddenly gave way to a cavern, and then, she realized that the object she was looking at upside-down was a spacecraft. It certainly wasn’t anything she recognized from Resicor.

She went from stone cavern to high-tech in a matter of moments. The coil of air settled her on a medical bed a moment before belts tied her down. Skiria looked around but couldn’t see her host. The hatch she had cruised through latched without anyone touching it, and she felt a thrumming energy under her. In seconds, they were moving and Skiria had no idea what was happening aside from a thought in her mind that everything was occurring as it should.

She didn’t know where that thought of calm was coming from but recognized it as truth coming from outside her own mind. To keep herself occupied, Skiria went through the rings of her mind and counted them one by one until she got a surprise. She had a tenth layer around her mind swirling at a high speed. She reached through it and found the pilot in the ship. He was busy navigating away from the stone and confirming a clear sky.

The acceleration made her slide to the bottom of the bed and her feet began to burn. Her nerves started to fire in sequence, and her clenched teeth and heaving groans contained what she could. The mind behind the controls was stressed and she didn’t want to distract him.

In the grip of the bands, she thrashed as her nervous system lit up with the sensation of acid being poured across her skin. She continued her huffing groans in a slow rhythm until her body overloaded and she dropped back to the bed and blacked out.

 

Cool waves swept over her and washed down her body. She opened her eyes a slit and saw the dark shape standing over her. His skin was a strange combination of spots and stripes in blues, greens and creams. She could see his arms and the colours and assumed that the rest of his torso matched when it wasn’t covered by a bodysuit.

His face was concealed by shadows; the light was behind his head.

He nodded when he noticed that she opened her eyes and presented her with a flat screen. She touched the plexi panel and it flashed brightly. “Damn it!”

He caught the screen and took it from her before stroking her forehead. “I am sorry. I am guessing you have had your fill of light and darkness.”

His words sounded funny. She leaned away from his smoothing hands and narrowed her eyes. “You are speaking a different language.”

“So are you. That was the flash. It is a language download that works very well with your species.”

The straps were off. She realized that they had to have been removed before she took the screen. Skiria struggled to sit up.

“Easy. You have been asleep for two days, and from the records we received, immobile for days prior to that. You were also dead for a period of time according to the data that was sent to me.”

He shifted to help her sit up, and she smiled at the sharp and angular features that were revealed by the change in his position. His eyes were black within black and the only solid colouring on his body. The rest of his skin and hair wore the shades of blue, green and cream that skated across his arms.

To her surprise, his mind touched that outer layer of hers, and she saw his features flinch. “I wasn’t told you had such a developed repulsion ability.”

“I didn’t. It is new.”

He blinked, and a second lid shot over his eyes before the primary lids closed and opened. “That wasn’t in the report.”

“It was a gift from the mind of Resicor, but I don’t know what it is for. I can get out but no one can get in.”

“Handy. Well, my name is Tyvor. You are Skiria?”

“I am.”

His hands were on her waist and she was wearing nothing but a sheet.

“Where did my clothing go?”

“You have an armoured suit waiting for you. It will help you in my natural environment. You are now in a form of witness protection.”

She blinked and slowly clutched the sheet to her chest. “What?”

“My world has offered you sanctuary, and I don’t believe that you have a choice in accepting it.”

Skiria narrowed her eyes and sent her mind to his. He leaned back when she made contact, and once she had rifled through his thoughts, she retreated. “Fine. I will come with you.”

Salass was the world and it was ninety percent water. She would be stationed on one of the small islands and a home was waiting for her.

“How long did they know I was coming?” Skiria slowly moved her legs to one side of the medical bed, and she winced as feeling returned with her circulation.

“Six months. The seers warned us six months ago and that is when I was inducted into the Citadel. No Salassian had been brought off world before me, but I received the training and returned home to wait until it was time to bring you to Salass.”

He was telling the truth; she had made a memory copy of him and compared his words to his memory.

“What did you just do, Skiria?”

“I am not quite sure. It was something I did on instinct.” Her brain was already discarding the bright strength of his memories. They were fading away and tucking themselves into a corner of her mind like shadows in a box.

“I am a long-range telekinetic. I have mixed with telepaths and am familiar with most of the standard minds and techniques, but yours are unique.”

Skiria looked into his solid eyes and nodded when she managed to read the truth in his expression. Reading his mind was cheating, but it had been a reflex she had been unable to resist. She was going to restart their interaction and that meant learning how his face moved when he was sincere.

“I do believe that they are. Perhaps that is why things have been arranged for me.”

He inclined his head. “Remain here. I will get your suit. It will support you as you regain your strength.”

She sat still with her feet slowly swinging while her companion disappeared. If she was going to be off her world, at least she had company who was willing to chat and who didn’t mind when her thoughts got a little grabby. His mind had been so easy to invade that she hadn’t bothered reining herself in. If the world she was about to visit had others on it of a similar nature, self-control was something she needed to practice.

Another world. Skiria fought hysterical laughter. For as many talents as she helped to leave Resicor, she had never imagined herself to be included in their number. Now, she had no chance to choose her own fate, she just had to make the best of the situation she was in.

 

Chapter Three

 

 

The suit was definitely supportive; it was also snugger than her swimsuit the year she turned eighteen and liked to splay out on the beach. When she was nineteen, she had been selected for government work and her beach days were over.

As she carefully sat next to Tyvor, he turned his head toward her and nodded. “Good. It will insulate you when you swim and support you if you are at any serious depth.”

“What are my options when this is being cleaned?”

“It is self-cleaning, will deploy breathing apparatus for you and keep you safe on your new home.” He smiled brightly, showing his teeth slightly in the blue colouration surrounding his lips.

“You look like you designed it.” She had seen that look of pride before.

“I did. It was created by Fixer and Tech of the Sector Guard, but I put in the requirements that you would face on Salass. It was my first assignment when I was training at the Citadel.”

“Why did you agree to go?”

He cocked his head and ran a hand over his tightly braided hair. “It seemed like the thing to do. I was always a little odd at home, and when the Citadel came to the door, it seemed like an opportunity that I could not pass up.”

She chuckled. “Right. Now, getting back to something you said earlier. I was dead?” She ran her finger around the neckline of the neck-to-toe bodysuit.

“It was necessary to register you as dead so that those who assisted you could remain in their positions.”

“So, I had to die.”

She remembered darkness and then the bright surge of light before her final communication with Resicor. She thought it had been a dream.

“More or less.”

“And you were waiting for me.”

“I was. Resicor caught you and handed you over to me, so to speak.” He shrugged.

She decided to change the subject again and ran her hands over the torso of the suit. “It is the same colour as my eyes.”

“I suggested that we match your hair but was told it would be less than appropriate to have you become a blue blob in the oceans.”

Skiria made a face and then paused. “You knew what I looked like?”

“The seer saw all and had access to all of your personnel files. They knew who you were before you did.”

The statement hung in the air between them.

Tyvor smiled. “It is an odd thought to you; I can see that much in your features. My people are all fairly well versed in the arts of mind-to-mind communication. We also do much with body language, though you have to be in the water to do it properly.”

“The folk of Resicor do not have seers. Well…not very strong ones.”

He laughed. “Seers are some of the best hidden of the talents when they know what they are and wish to hide.”

Skiria blinked. “I suppose.”

“Attach that harness you are sitting on. We are preparing for landing and we will be going in hot.”

She reached behind her and attached the harness, surprised when it pulled her tight on its own.

“What does going in hot mean?”

“It means we have a minute window to get through the planetary shielding and the interior defenses. We have to move fast and hit the water hard.”

For the first time she focussed on the world with its blue-purple water covering nearly all the surface. “Oh good grief and sobbing sisters.” She gripped the arms of her chair with all her strength.

He flicked on a com system and whispered and clicked into a microphone. An answering set of clicks sounded and a light flashed over the surface that they were approaching. A wavy ripple worked through the sky in their path and small vessels circled below that, leaving a hole that their ship was going to have to fly through.

“Hold tight. This is going to light the hull on fire and that tends to spook some first-time fliers.” Tyvor smiled tightly and gripped the controls, slowing, relaxing and tightening his fingers one by one. He exhaled, inhaled and then they were nose-diving toward Salass.

It took only a few minutes to fall into the planet and past the blur of the circled ships. The water frothed under them as they grew closer, and when it swallowed the ship, there was a tremendous hiss and crackling as the hull cooled in seconds.

Tyvor sighed with relief and smiled as the ship slowed, manoeuvring under the sea and toward a huge tower of stone deep below the surface.

Skiria leaned forward and looked up, shuddered and sat back as she tried to calculate the weight of water over her head. Breathing with all that water around her was next to impossible, but she inhaled, exhaled and focussed on keeping herself calm.

They were on a slow path to an opening, and he asked her, “How are you doing over there? I hear that air breathers can have a problem when they are first under the surface.”

“I am concentrating on not panicking. Do you…I mean…does everyone here breathe water?”

“The population of this world is amphibious in its entirety. You will be very exotic here.” He winked.

“I don’t want to be exotic; I just want to be free. If I can’t have the run of the planet, I want to at least have the freedom to choose those that I sleep with, or not as the case may be.” She couldn’t believe that she was having this conversation with a stranger, but since she had rifled through his mind, she had to admit that they were more familiar than they should have been.

“Your freedom will be limited, but you will have what we can provide.” He moved them into a cavern, and glowing lichen illuminated their path.

They settled on a platform, and to Skiria’s shock, they didn’t rise above the water.

“Um…I can’t breathe down here.”

“You can. The moment your suit gets wet, it will protect you and create oxygen for you. You will survive.” He shut down the ship and unclasped his harness.

She followed his example and trailed after him slowly. He led her to a hatch at the rear of the craft and opened the door to a small chamber.

Tyvor beckoned her to join him inside the tiny room. “Come with me. I promise I will not leave you.”

Swallowing hard, she stepped toward him and took the hand he held out to her. Her gloved fingers clutched at his when the door sealed shut behind them and water swirled around her feet. Out of reflex, she gripped his mind with hers when the water rose and her suit still hadn’t reacted.

His black gaze and calm expression kept her from clawing at the walls when the water passed her hips. When her breathing began to come rapidly, she heard a click that preceded the grip of the suit around her neck rising to frame her face and cover her features in a clear shell that she could feel but not see.

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