The Dark Defiance Read online

  Tommy felt a weight lift as he watched his sister thread her way through the furniture. He watched her talk to Elise who responded with an embarrassed laugh. She handed the book back to the young girl. Deirdre wandered over to Kale, giving him a light thump on the back of the head with her book before sitting across from him. She leaned forward and whatever she said made the mercenary laugh. It was the strangest friendship Tommy could imagine, but his little sister was the only one the man seemed to trust.

  Elise appeared to be deep in thought. Finally, she got up and headed back to the alcove where Tommy tried to look busy.

  “Deirdre tells me there’s a copy of Anna Karenina in here somewhere.”

  “I’ll help you look. I could use the break. This is not exactly exciting work.” He waved the tablet before setting it on the table.

  “Really?” She stood just inside the door, her head cocked quizzically to one side. “Resurrecting a dead alien language sounds pretty interesting to me!” She moved to Tommy’s side to peer down at the tablet. “What method are you using?”

  Tommy felt as though the blood was about to evaporate through his skin. He was acutely aware of her nearness. Her hair held a faint trace of whatever she used to wash it and the scent, though simple, was making him weak in the knees. “Well,” he croaked, “I just use the OCR app to create two-dimensional representations of each Kholarii glyph, then I link it to the Imperial equivalent.” Talking about the translation calmed him. He hadn’t expected her to move so close; in his mind, he had pictured a friendly conversation with her as she sat in the other couch.

  Sit down, you bloody fool, before you fall down. He dropped onto the couch. To his alarm and delight, she sat as well, only inches away. If she asked me to jump out the airlock right now, I would definitely give it serious thought.

  “So it’s mostly drag and drop?” She was leaning forward to look down at the tablet on the coffee table. She smoothed back her almost-black hair, tucking it behind her ear.

  Tommy stole a glance at the graceful curve of her neck. What did she just ask me? Bloody hell! She’s going to think I’m not paying attention; how ironic would that be? Seemed like a yes or no type of question… “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “How much time will you need to make sense of it all?” She turned sideways on the couch facing him, pulling her knees up onto the cushions. Her right knee came to rest, carelessly against his leg.

  Time to finish. Though he had managed to keep her last question in his brain, it was nothing more than jumbled words without meaning. Tommy’s natural charm and easygoing nature always failed him around attractive women. He invariably turned into a brainless simpleton. Elise’s knee felt like a branding iron against his leg. How long to finish the translation – that’s what she’s asking. “I should finish in a couple of hours.” There! You actually answered a question without your head exploding…

  “Two hours!” She gave his shoulder a playful push. “Seriously – how long?”

  “I’m serious,” Tommy insisted with a grin. “It won’t give us the entire Kholari vocabulary, just the words on the dual inscription. Still that might be enough to give us a good idea of what the writing on the temple frieze is about.” How about that? My brain is working again. Perhaps this kind of thing gets easier with practice?

  She pushed back against the end of the couch, putting her feet against Tommy’s leg. “That’s still pretty impressive, Tommy! Do you mind if I stay here and read while you work?”

  “Not at all,” he said, perhaps a little too quickly. He grinned. “You might need a book for that, though.”

  The Ormen

  Three hours travel from Cera

  Balli Drengrson listened to the sounds of the ship for several minutes. Finally, certain that no crew were nearby, he deactivated his visibility shielding. It would take forever to place and activate the device if he couldn’t see his fingers and, anyway, he was sure to be discovered if a crewman entered the narrow engineering corridor. Being invisible didn’t prevent people from bumping into you.

  A red indicator light began to blink. Balli reached over to press a small rocker-switch. The object faded from view.

  Hungry, he looked down at the chronometer on his wrist. Middle of the dogwatch, he thought with relief. He reactivated his own visibility shield and moved back to the ladder. This was the best time to filch food from the mess deck. Nobody would be in there at this late hour.

  The Völund

  In transit to Cera

  “Liam, thanks for coming so quickly.” Harry waved his security chief to Tommy’s empty seat. “When you built your team, we weren’t counting on the violent brand of capitalism that seems to be the norm out here. I want to improve on our overall readiness.”

  “You want to give the crew more training?” Liam sat at his son’s station. “Danny’s already put together a good program while we were down on the surface. We just need to add a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Hand-to-hand would be a must. Amateurs tend to rely heavily on weapons, but an aggressive enemy will close fast and disarm you.” He nodded to himself. “We can start training them in small batches – each down shift can spend a couple of hours in the gym. Danny and Kale are both qualified instructors.”

  “How about the fighting drills?”

  “We keep them going as well. The ship carries almost as many blanks as live ammo. Red Flag may not have expected difficulty but I did. I’ve always looked at the rest of the crew as trainees in waiting.” He shrugged. “I’ve enough weapons in the armory to equip us twice over.”

  “And I thought it was just us Americans that believed in overkill…”

  “It’s only overkill if you don’t need it,” Liam answered mildly. “I should say I’m rather glad to have the extra ordinance, all things considered.” He stepped out of the chair. “I’ll have the lads start on it right away. I’ll have them teaching unarmed combat within the hour. We’ll run a separate fire-and-movement exercise at the same time and then switch the students over.” He gave a quiet snort of a laugh. “Just like the old East India ships in the eighteenth century. They used to train the passengers to handle the gunnery.” He headed for the companionway. “I’ll train the crew, you arrange for a letter of marque. We can start boarding vessels, taking prizes and all that…”

  He stopped at the hatch. “You’re on duty for how long – four more hours?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Right, we’ll put the first officer through the paces, then.”

  “Liam?”

  He stopped again, turning to face Harry. Fairly certain of what the captain was about to ask. “You’re wondering about Kale, I suspect.”

  “I am. He’s a loose cannon.”

  Liam sighed. “The next operator I meet who isn’t a loose cannon will be the first. Oh, he’s worse than most, I’ll grant you that,” he added before Harry could interject with the obvious. “But he’s my responsibility. I’ll keep him in check.” With that, he turned and left.

  The Ormen

  Three hours travel from Cera

  Balli almost collided with a crewman at the hatch leading down to where he had earlier planted his device. He was just turning to mount the top of the ladder when the other man’s head popped up though the opening. He barely managed to shift out of the way as the other man rapidly ascended the ladder.

  An alarming dusting of crumbs fell from Balli’s suit, falling on the crewman’s hair and face. With a shake of his head and a confused glance at the conduit trays above him, the man shrugged and moved over to a communications panel. “This is Hergils. I’ve found a strange object in the engineering conduit on deck twenty-three.”

  “Stay there, Hergils,” the panel responded. “We’ll send a technician to investigate.”

  His skin crawling with apprehension, Balli eased past Hergils and mounted the ladder. He descended as quickly as he could, balancing the need for quiet with the fear that Hergils would want to return to the conduit to
have another look at the strange object.

  He moved several feet down the conduit, seeing immediately that the shielding had failed. He snatched it from the wall and deactivated its primary function before groping blindly for the storage sheath that had been attached to his chest. He slid the object out of sight just as Hergils’ feet began to thump their way down the ladder.

  Very slowly, Balli moved to an intersection of two conduits where he would be able to keep out of the way of any approaching crewmen. He settled on his haunches to wait for the technician.

  The Völund

  In transit to Cera

  Jan stood in the gymnasium with the rest of the group, waiting for the hand-to-hand combat class to begin. Mike, Gelna, and Carol were talking with Kale and Ken about their adventures on the surface. Liam stood next to her but they still weren’t talking much. Jan had been shaken to learn how much danger they had encountered. She was somehow able to accept her husband’s job and, by extension, the fact that he might be required to kill. She had no such allowances in her mind for Tommy.

  It had shocked her deeply when Liam told her about Tommy’s role in the fight with Saramach’s men. She had tried to talk to him, almost as much for herself as for him, but he insisted he was fine. He had no need to re live the moment or explain it to anyone.

  “Sorry, folks,” Keira came out of the elevator. “I had to get Max working on valve installation. The Cerrans use a different standard than what we needed at Khola. He won’t be able to make it to the session.”

  There goes my combat buddy, thought Jan. In truth, she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of trying to fight against the big engineer’s ample weight.

  Doc Fredo came running from the forward companionway where he and Elise had their cabins. “I’m late,” he called cheerfully. He reached his hand in the closing doorway just in time to stop the elevator. He was scheduled for weapons training for the next two hours and he looked eager.

  Odd for a doctor to want to play with firearms. Jan turned as more movement caught her eye. Elise came rushing towards the group.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, out of breath. “Got sidetracked, going over inventory in the sick bay.”

  Jan thought nothing of it until she saw Tommy appear from the same direction. She stifled a frown, looking around at the rest of the group. The only other crew member who seemed to have noticed was Kale. He had an amused smirk on his face as he turned and caught Jan’s gaze. His smirk evolved into a grin as he turned around to address the group.

  “All right,” he began in a firm voice. “Dr. Kennedy will pair up with Keira, Elise with Mike, Gelna with Tommy, and that leaves our first officer in the lurch, seeing as Max can’t join us.” He looked at Ken. “You work with Carol, I can manage without the extra coach for today.”

  Jan couldn’t help but notice that Elise looked only slightly disappointed. I would have expected her to jump at the chance to wrestle with Tommy. She looked over her shoulder at the forward companionway. There was no reason for Tommy to be there unless he was visiting the sick bay. Perhaps she’s already had some wrestling practice this morning. That could explain why she’s less disappointed.

  She smiled to herself. They had to wait for Fredo to leave. Those two were definitely up to something if they felt the need to hide from her father. I’m surprised Kale had the good taste not to draw attention to it. Though she had only been a part of Tommy’s life since marrying his father, she was more like a big sister than a mother and she was thrilled to see him find someone.

  She watched as Liam left to check on the weapons class. He didn’t appear to have noticed a thing. Men, she thought with amusement. They never see what’s right under their noses.

  After stretching, they moved straight into stance. Kale placed his feet at shoulder width, bending his knees. “You should balance on the balls of your feet,” he explained. “This is your basic position.” He came around and tested each student with a shove.

  “Not bad,” he called over his shoulder as he walked over to the mat by the starboard windows. He picked up four Glock 9mm pistols. “You all seem to know how to stand, so let’s move on to something a little more exciting.” He handed out one Glock to each two-person team. “If it comes down to them being armed and you having nothing but your ass-scratchers, your best chance of beating them is usually to surrender.”

  He grinned at the surprised chuckles. “If you find someone has the drop on you, throw up your hands and get as close as you can.” He looked over to where Carol was standing with Ken and nodded.

  Ken grinned. Taking the pistol, he came forward and turned to face Kale. He pulled the slide back to ensure that it wasn’t loaded. He thumbed the release, closing the weapon on an empty chamber and raised it to point at Kale’s chest.

  “Don’t shoot me, man!’ Kale threw his hands up to the level of his head, a panicked look on his face as he moved forward. “It wasn’t me, it was some other guy. I’m just here for the comic convention…” As he reached Ken, his left hand darted forward. He grabbed the weapon, turning his body out of the firing arc and grabbing Ken’s elbow with his right hand. Kale rotated his opponent’s forearm in a counter-clockwise direction, stripping the gun out of his hand as he forced him to the mats.

  “If you do this properly, the pain is so intense that he has no choice but to release the weapon and fall down.” He held the captured pistol up as he spoke. “They think they have the upper hand. The idea that you are still in the fight is not exactly credible for them.” He helped Ken up and handed back the weapon. “There’s a good chance you might get yourself shot trying this, so make sure you evaluate the situation before you go ahead.”

  He ran through it again in slow motion and then it was time for the class to try. “Slow motion, everyone,” he called out. “I don’t want any broken trigger fingers or sprained elbows on the first day.”

  Jan faced off against Keira with a grin. “You got me, Tex.” She raised her hands.

  Keira rolled her eyes. “You sound about as American as Gelna.” She twitched the barrel. “Now come and get it, luv, or don’t you ‘ave the minerals?”

  Jan laughed. “One bad imitation deserves…” She darted out her hand grasping Keira’s weapon, but, instead of putting her right hand to her opponent’s elbow, she used her free hand to rotate the weapon down and to her right, sliding it out of the startled engineer’s hand and bringing it back up to point at her chest.

  “Say something nice about my fake American accent,” Jan demanded sweetly.

  “It sounds exactly like a constipated Chicago gangster.” Keira raised her hands.

  “Very impressive, Dr. Kennedy,” Kale cut in. “But most of the crew don’t have a live-in combat instructor at their disposal. Let’s try this again but use the method demonstrated. Keira’s life may depend on this skill someday. All of our lives may depend on her being able to disarm an enemy.” He moved down the line.

  “You’re almost there, Elise. You took Dr. Willsen’s gun, but you need to follow through. He’s still on his feet.” Kale put her hands back on Mike’s forearm and stepped back. “Remember to keep rotating the arm until he slams onto the mat. That gives you an extra couple of seconds for your next move.”

  Elise did as instructed and her eyes grew wide in surprise as her opponent went down. “I can’t believe I just did that!”

  “Oh, you did it alright.” Mike was holding his elbow as he sat on the mats.

  “Did Elise hurt you, sweetie?” Keira’s voice oozed sarcasm as she smiled down at her husband.

  “Yes,” he grinned. “She was supposed to, wasn’t she?” He got back on his feet. “I’d say she’s doing a helluva job!” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you insinuating that a woman can’t hold her own?”

  Keira’s rejoinder was cut off by a loud yelp from the end of the line where Gelna was holding his tail and glaring at Tommy.

  “Hey, you started it by using the damn thing,” Tommy grinned at the alien. “If you don’t want you
r tail tweaked, don’t try grabbing my hand with it.”

  “Might as well expand on that, now that we’ve just seen an example.” Kale stepped back to where it was easy for all to see him. “Gelna’s species is the only one we’ve run into that has a tail. They use it in combat, but they usually have the sense to keep ‘em out of reach. They’re strong but highly sensitive to being twisted, as the good doctor here has kindly demonstrated.

  “The ones with proper training will only use their tails to strike at vital points or deflect a blow. The only time they risk a hold is to keep you from stuffing a gun in their faces. Dr. Dumbass here,” he waved a hand at the alien medical officer, “would’ve had the standard ‘here’s what combat would look like, but don’t worry about it’ kind of course. That’s why he tried to get cute.

  “Best thing to do with a tail on your hand is to rotate your elbow and forearm.” He slowly demonstrated the movement. “It forces your hand under the tail and rotates it through a full three-hundred-sixty degrees.” He grinned over at Gelna. “I guarantee he’ll let go before you get halfway. Don’t give me that look,” he advised the alien. “That amateur crap might have worked on a civilian but Tommy here’s been learning from his dad for the last ten years.”

  Two hours later, they found themselves in the crew lounge where Willie Simpson was drilling them on weapons safety. Jan and Tommy were bored, having spent years around weapons. Gelna was fascinated. Given the restrictions placed on him by the government, he had never thought to be armed. “You humans are always inventing such exciting new ways to kill each other!”

  He did possess one small advantage in armed combat, which soon became apparent. He had brought a grooming mirror with him and he clipped it to the end of his tail as he and Tommy were preparing to take their turn on the offensive. He volunteered to take the cover positions as his species was entirely ambidextrous.