Salene's Secrets (12 page)

Chapter
8

Salene sat in the
Ember’s
map room staring out the large viewport while spinning a set of ordinary steel
sai
in her hands.  Not only did the exercise increase her hand strength and improve dexterity, it also had a calming effect on her that she didn’t understand and didn’t bother trying to analyze.  She enjoyed it, so she did it.  In the beginning she’d used a pair of the
Kunian
steel
sai
Aisling had given her, but when she’d accidentally dropped one it fell to the floor point down and sank four inches into the steel floor plate, stopping only because the hilt was too thick to fit through the hole made by the blade.  After that, she decided practicing with them wasn’t a very good idea aboard a vessel traveling through space at hyper speeds so she switched to the ordinary steel
sai
she’d brought along for practice.

It had been three days since she’d received Aisling’s message telling her that, after days of repeated searches of the
Armadura
, the Council building, the labs, the transports used to move the collected items from the
Armadura
, and even the strong room in the Hidden City, the tank gel had finally been found.
It’d been either dropped or knocked over onto the floor where it had rolled beneath the bottom shelf of the
Armadura’s
safe.  Aisling’s message indicated that the gel had been sent for testing, but she hadn’t mentioned how long that would take.

Time.  Everything boiled down to time, something she hadn’t realized until they were a couple of days out of Jasan.  Now it was her biggest problem.  She thought she’d been so careful to think about everything in advance, but hadn’t once considered how much slower the yacht was than a larger ship.  Even an older vessel like the Bearen’s
Kontuan
could have made the journey between Garza and Jasan in eight days with the new jump points instead of the ten or eleven that the yacht required.  It was an oversight that made her angry at herself whenever she thought of it. 

Captain Jake had informed her that morning that he’d devised a shortcut which would shave a full day off of their journey.  Out of boredom Salene had gone to the map room so she could see the
Ember’s
new route on the three dimensional plotter.  She was grateful to Captain Jake for making the effort, but she didn’t see how it could possibly make any difference.  This was already the
Ember’s
sixth day out.  Even with the shortcut they wouldn’t reach Garza for another four days and that would be much,
much
too late. 

Since leaving Jasan she’d learned that the Gryphons’ new ship, the
Aegl
, being smaller and faster than the usual Jasani battleships, would have reached Garza in seven days.  They left Jasan two days before her, so they should’ve arrived on Garza late the previous day.  That meant they were probably having Blind Sight installed that very moment.  Since she had no more idea of how long that would take than she had of how long it would take for the gel to be tested, she’d decided that she couldn’t afford to allow more than one day for it.

With all those factors in mind, she’d reluctantly set herself a deadline which was now only four hours away.  If she didn’t get lab results from Jasan by the time those four hours were up, she was going to send Tani a message revealing her suspicions.  It was an enormous risk but she didn’t see any way around it.  If she was correct, it would probably save the Gryphons’ lives.  If, on the other hand, she was wrong…she shuddered so hard at the thought that she nearly dropped the
sai
, barely catching it with the tips of her fingers before it had a chance to fall more than a couple of inches.

“You do be having fast hands,” Jinjie commented from where he stood looking through the viewport, something he seemed capable of doing for hour upon endless hour.  The Jotunn was only about five inches high not counting the bright orange, four inch high cone shaped horns that nearly doubled his height.  The first time Salene had seen him he’d been dressed in a long black tunic, but now he wore a pair of black leather pants and a black t-shirt in imitation of Rayne’s Rami.  His wide, blocky feet were still bare, though.  Since he could have created shoes to fit himself with a flick of his hand now that his magic was fully restored, she guessed he simply preferred to keep his feet bare.  She secretly thought he looked cute as heck in his tiny black leather pants, but she wouldn’t have dared to say such a thing out loud for any reason. 

“All it takes is practice.”

“Not do be true,” Jinjie argued mildly.  “You do be having speed talent.  Practice do be sharpen skill for
you
.  But, do be not work in everyone.”

“I suppose,” she said.  Then, before her brain could sensor her mouth, she asked him something she’d been wondering about for days.  “Why did you agree to come with me on this trip?”

Jinjie turned away from the viewport and, with a seemingly effortless leap, landed on the desk in front of her.  He studied her with his round, soft brown eyes for a long moment, but she was in no hurry and waited patiently.  “You do be part of Lady Bear,” he said finally, using his personal name for Rayne.  “Me do be not understanding first.  Now do.  Harm to you do be harm to Rayne, so loyalty do be yours, too.”  He shrugged.  “And you do be like quiet, as do be me.  Me do be liking you.”

Salene swallowed the unexpected emotion caused by Jinjie’s words.  “Thanks, Jinjie,” she said.  “Me do be liking you, too.”

He grinned, revealing big square teeth.  “Besides, Jinjie do be not…easy…with Lady Bear’s swings.”

“Swings?” Salene asked blankly.

“That do be what Landor Bear say.  Swings of mood.” 

“I see,” Salene said, understanding.  “She’s not very far along.  That seems fast to me.”

“Jasani do being fast on most things,” Jinjie said wryly.  “Do be wanting practice power bond?”

“Sure,” Salene said with a sigh, resisting the urge to reach up and touch the red diamond on her forehead.  She’d gotten very good at drawing the power from the stone which, she’d discovered, turned her eyes red and the diamond gold until she put the power back.  But she couldn’t do anything with the power once she had it.

“You do be not want practice?”

“I do,” she said, and she meant it.  She’d worked as hard in the yacht’s training room as she had in Aisling’s every day since leaving Jasan.  Jinjie had been enormously helpful, especially when she practiced with the power bond.  “I’m just feeling a little impatient I guess.”

“Power do be working when do be need it.” 

Salene nodded.  Both Jinjie and Wolef had told her the same thing several times now and while she believed them, it was still frustrating.  But, even though she hadn’t discovered how to actually use the power, and despite her suspicions concerning the Gryphons, she didn’t regret her choice to power bond with Wolef. 

She’d given it a lot of thought over the past six days.  The power bond gave her the potential to do something significant, something that would actually matter to others.  She liked that.  Even more importantly, she needed that.  It gave her a sense of purpose.

A soft ping sounded from the vid-terminal on the desk in front of her and the screen went black for a brief moment before displaying an image of Captain Jake.  She tapped the screen to accept the incoming call.

“Salene, get into your life suit please,” he said the instant her face appeared on his screen.

“What’s going on, Captain?”

“We’ve run into a meteor shower,” he said.  Salene frowned.  Because meteor showers were usually the debris from old comets, interstellar vessels rarely encountered them.  But they were nothing new, either.  The standard running shields should easily protect the ship from damage.

“Captain?” she asked, a slight warning in her tone.  She was no longer a child.  She was, in fact, the
Ember’s
Commander.  She would never presume to tell Captain Jake how to run the ship, but she wouldn’t be treated like a delicate little flower incapable of handling the truth, either.

Captain Jake flashed her a brief smile and a quick nod of acknowledgement.  “The meteors are striking a massive force field up ahead.  Each time one hits it flashes, otherwise we’d never have known it was there.  There are no signal buoys or warnings on it at all.  It’s too big to avoid at our current speed and position.  We’re decelerating as hard as we can but we
are
going to hit it which is why I need you in the launch bay and suited up.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she said briskly.  “Jinjie and I’ll head for the launch bay at once.”  Captain Jake nodded and broke the connection. 

Salene hesitated for just a moment, then made a quick decision.  She pulled up a message screen, tapped out one brief sentence, taking no more than a few seconds to say all that needed to be said.  Then she pressed the
Send
key with a silent prayer and stood up.  Jinjie leapt to her shoulder and they hurried out of the map room and into the corridor. 

Salene walked quickly but didn’t run, glad that she knew the yacht well enough to take the shortest route to her destination without having to stop and think about it.  She was about half way there when the ship shuddered, setting off alarms everywhere.  She stumbled into the wall, barely managing to stay on her feet.  She glanced at Jinjie, relieved to see that he was holding on tightly to the shoulder of her kevlex top.  She set out again, keeping one hand on the wall now as she walked the rest of the way as fast as she could.  Just when she reached for the launch bay door sensor the ship lurched with enough force that it lifted her up, then slammed her to the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of her.  She climbed to her feet as quickly as she could while still trying to suck air into suddenly and painfully emptied lungs, and hit the door sensor with the palm of her hand.

“This do be bad,” Jinjie said.  She nodded her agreement, unable to speak since she was exercising her renewed ability to breathe.  Once inside she grabbed a survival suit and pulled it on in the required thirty seconds or less, her heart racing, but outwardly composed.

“Suit up, Jinjie,” she rasped as soon as she could speak again.  She looked sideways at the Jotunn who’d jumped off of her shoulder, then back on again after she pulled on her suit.  He nodded, then waved his hand, emitting a little shower of orange sparks.  A moment later he wore an exact duplicate of her silver survival suit which he’d shrunk down from a regular sized suit before they’d left Jasan.  The only other change he’d made to it was an extra tall hood to cover his horns. 

“Do be you want weapons roll?” Jinjie asked, surprising her. 

She quickly considered his offer.  Beneath her survival suit she wore a pair of black kevlex pants and a long sleeved kevlex top with the black knee high boots Aisling had given her, but she wasn’t wearing the weapons vest.  Aside from one pair of Kunian knives hanging from her belt, and one pair of steel
sai
, she was virtually unarmed.  Even if the worst happened and they were forced to abandon the yacht, there was no reason to think she’d need weapons while floating around in a life pod waiting to be picked up.  But she’d made a promise to herself and she meant to keep it.

“If you can bring it here with your magic yes, I’d appreciate that very much.  I’d really like the hand lasers and the weapons vest, too if you can.”

“Where they do be?”

Salene told him and he waved his hands in a strange pattern.  Bright orange sparks flashed in the air around him just before the black silk weapons roll appeared in the middle of the floor.  She bent to pick it up, then opened the emergency survival pack compartment on one of the coffin shaped life pods that stood upright in a row along the wall, and shoved it inside.  When she turned back around the soft leather weapons vest and a holster containing her hand lasers lay on the floor in the same place.  “Can you get some of my kevlex from the top drawer?” she asked hopefully.  Jinjie waved his arms again and all of the kevlex Aisling had given her that she wasn’t already wearing appeared on the floor. 

“Thank you so much, Jinjie,” she said with real relief.  She put the hand lasers in the compartment with the weapons roll, but there was no room to add anything else so she closed the door and sealed it.  Then she opened the door to the padded interior and tossed the kevlex inside along with the vest.

“Do be need anything else?”

“No, but thank you,” she said as she opened the control panel on the right side of the unit and pressed a big yellow button.  Lights flashed and the pod’s computer began cycling through a status check, making sure it had the required fuel, oxygen and power to perform its function, which was to ensure the survival of its occupant.  Salene went to the next pod and did the same, making her way around the small bay until all seven of the
Ember’s
emergency life pods were prepped and ready for immediate use.  It wasn’t until she was finished that she realized the ship was no longer shaking and shuddering, and that the alarms had gone quiet. 

The launch bay door opened and Captain Jake entered, took one look around and nodded.  “Good thinking, Salene, but I think the danger’s passed.”