Chance of Stardust

Stardust (ch3)

Revelin returned to the ship dirty, tired and disheartened. Nothing had gone his way since they’d landed on this backward, uncivilized planet. Even the indigenous metals weren’t anything close to what he needed for repairs even if he had the tech to recreate the part.


Damn Leiv and his daredevil flying. Diving through the heart of the Gurot perimeter ships in their bid to flee Gael hadn’t worked out as planned since apparently the Gurot didn’t worry overly about hitting their own ships when in pursuit of the enemy. Leiv had avoided a full broadside by a hair’s width but the resulting wash of debris had damaged their ship. Their overloaded engines had managed to get them free of the planet and into spatial flux, but they’d been forced out when they lost one of the engines. It would take decades to limp home on one engine.


They might have to, he reflected as the doors closed behind him and the shielding reengaged. If they couldn’t create or repair a new crossover conduit, they would have no other choice. Llyr had to be returned to Gael at some point.


He found the others gathered in the common area including the little Crown Prince. Llyr’s eyes slid toward him and then away before landing and something dark uncurled in his gut. No one looked at him, he noted. In fact, everyone was making a point of not looking at him.


“What happened?”


Silence. A low growl rumbled in his throat.


“It was my fault, Rev,” Llyr said finally in a small voice.


“What was?”


“The girl.” Green eyes raised beseechingly to his, begging for understanding. “I just wanted to get out for a bit.”


Revelin closed his eyes, trying for patience. An ache throbbed just behind his eyes, threatening to blossom into the mother of all headaches. He gave another look around.


“You let him out of the ship?”


The question only made the heads of his men dip lower on their shoulders. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes.


“What girl?”


“She saw me and spoke to me,” Llyr admitted. “I wanted to leave her there, but Ari tapped her on the head and Leiv insisted on bringing her back.”


“A girl.”


The young prince nodded.


Revelin fixed his second with a look. “You brought an indigenous female onto this ship? What were you thinking?”


“She’d been talking to Llyr and she saw me.” Leiv shifted uneasily. “We couldn’t leave her where the Gurot could get their hands on her. She could have led them to us.”


“Not unless she has a Universal implant,” Revelin pointed out as patiently as he could. It came out as a snarl. “She wouldn’t understand a word they said.”


More guilty looks passed between his men. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know but he had to ask.


“Tell me.”


Ari sighed and met his gaze, regret clear in his dark eyes. “She went under so quickly, I was worried I’d tapped her too hard. I didn’t want to kill her and she’s a tiny little thing. When Leiv insisted on bringing her back, I put her in the tube to make sure I hadn’t hurt her.”


The tube. A medical device that not only diagnosed wounds and diseases but could speed healing and even perform limited surgery when necessary. It didn’t work with hirrient physiology, but it wasn’t on board for them but for Llyr. Revelin knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.


“You didn’t know if it would even work on her,” he pointed out.


“No, but it was worth a chance.” Ari lifted a shoulder. “I just didn’t expect to it detect her lack of a Universal and work to remedy it.”


Stars and deities. Revelin breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. Patience was a lost cause but the headache a certainty.


“Now we have one of the indigenous people running around with a Universal implant in her head? Is that what you’re telling me? Not only did you attack one of them after I gave specific orders to leave them alone, but you rendered her traceable by any Gurot in the area?” No one answered. Revelin’s growl rumbled again, his lips pulling back from his teeth. “Fetch her here, Leiv.”


“Me?” His second startled up. “Why me?”


“Because you brought her here. She’s your responsibility.”


Leiv hesitated and then stalked out, his snarls and growls soft in the silence. No one else moved. No one made a sound. Llyr swung his feet, sneaking glances at Revelin. There was something odd in that green gaze, something too knowing that set the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.


He didn’t have a chance to figure it out. Leiv returned, still snarling, but holding a hand over his nose. Blood seeped from between his fingers and low growls rumbled in this throat. Revelin narrowed his eyes.


“You want her, you get her,” Leiv snapped, dropping back into his seat. “Vicious little primate.”


Instinct pushed him to snarl back, force Leiv to back down and submit to the command, but the rational part of his brain held him back. There were better ways than blood to make his point.


He lifted a brow, letting a small smirk curve his lips. “Where did you put her?”


“We left her in the med room,” Ari offered when it became clear Leiv’s temper was too far gone for coherent conversation. “We left food on a tray for her and the lav is there if she needs water.”


He didn’t point out that if the female didn’t have an implant, it was likely she wouldn’t know how to work the controls for the lav. Stars only knew what they used for facilities on this world.


“Wait here.”


He strode out without waiting for an answer. Out of sight, he paused, taking deep breaths and trying to dampen his temper. Leiv’s mishandling of the situation and Ari’s well-meant but potentially lethal mistake left him in a quandary. Leiv was right in one aspect, especially now. Outside of the ship’s shielding, the Gurot could track the Universal’s signal while in use. If they found the girl, she would now be able to understand their questions when they got down to torturing her for information. He couldn’t risk Llyr’s safety by turning the girl loose and they couldn’t leave until they repaired the crossover conduit.


She’d drawn blood on Leiv, he thought with a spark of humor. They’d described her as small, but it seemed she could defend herself. His humor died. If she drew blood on the Gurot, what they would do to her would be the stuff of nightmares.


He made his way to the med room, not sure what he expected to find. Taking a moment, he settled his temper before reaching for the door controls.


He caught the metal tray that was aimed for his face, curling his fingers over the edge before it could make contact and holding on. The girl yanked at it, determined to defend herself. He held it a moment longer to reinforce the reality of his physical superiority and then let go. The girl stumbled back, retreating across the room, her meager weapon held at the ready in trembling hands. She was terrified, but she wasn’t giving in. Courage he could respect.


Revelin closed the door and keyed the lock. He was taking no chances on her getting free before they came to an understanding. Taking note of her white knuckled grip and harsh breathing, he crouched where he was, leaning back against the door and laying his hands, palm down, on his thighs. He had no intention of being bloodied as Leiv had been.


They had described her as small and a girl, but this was no child. Every shuddering breath she took brushed the soft fabric of the shirt she wore over small breasts perfect for her slim, willowy frame. Long legs were encased in a tough, blue fabric and white fabric shoes were on her feet. Not small, he amended. Soft. Her long hair escaped the tie that held it at the back of her neck to fall around a rather pretty face in a cloud of pale light. The eyes that never moved from his were a piece of purest sky. She was, without a doubt, the softest looking female he’d ever laid eyes on, pretty in a way that welcomed like a sigh rather than the cold edge of what the court touted as beauty.


“What’s your name?” he asked, keeping his voice low and even.


She lurched at the question, her grip on the tray wobbling, and her expression morphed from terror to shocked discomfort.


Revelin sighed. “The idiots allowed the tube to implant the Universal but never bothered to activate it, did they?” he asked the room at large since it was clear the woman didn’t understand him.


She closed her eyes for an instant and then opened them, determination filling her gaze.


There was no help for it.


“I wish I could spare you this,” he said, watching her flinch from the sound of his voice and her jaw tighten to cracking. The tray lowered, her hands shaking worse though now it wasn’t from fear. “My friends apparently felt no need to activate your Universal while you were under so you’re going to have to listen to me talk while it sync’s with mine.”


He caught her as she sagged, her arms wrapped around her middle. The tray clattered to the floor, forgotten. He got her to the waste disposal basin just in time as she lost everything in her stomach. He held her hair away from her face, feeling vastly inadequate. Such soft, silky hair. Her slender body twisted and heaved and he murmured low, knowing he was only causing her more misery, but it couldn’t be helped.


“I’m sorry. I truly am. None of this should have happened to you.” A quiet litany he repeated over and over, wishing there were any other way to do this.


She retched again and again until she hung limp in his arms. He settled her on the floor and wet a cloth, holding it down to her. She eyed it for a moment and he saw fear creep back into her gaze. He waited. Hesitantly, she reached up and took the cloth, murmuring a soft word.


Thank you.


The meaning blossomed in the back of his brain as his Universal captured the translation from hers. Good. The interface was nearly done. He retreated back to his place at the door, leaving her chosen weapon on the floor near her legs.


She didn’t immediately reach for it. Instead, she cleaned her face slowly, all the while eyeing the distance between them. He’d already proven he could cross that distance before she saw him move, but it was the principle of the thing. He wasn’t crowding her, wasn’t threatening her. Fear still glimmered in those pure as sky eyes, but there was something thoughtful there, too, now.


“What’s your name?” he asked again and watched her flinch.


She rubbed at her stomach, her lips thinning, but she controlled herself, wrestling back the nausea. With methodical precision, she folded the cloth in neat quarters and laid it aside, pulling her knees to her chest, her eyes never leaving him.


“Cassie,” she said finally.


He inclined his head. “My name is Revelin. I must apologize for my people.”


“I see your lips move, but the words you say aren’t the words I hear.” Her eyes narrowed. “That is so weird.”


The last was murmured in a low undertone.


“The Universal implant translates my words into your language. That is why my words don’t match what you understand.”


She closed her eyes, a shudder rolling over her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, please, but listening to talk makes me want to throw up and I know it isn’t your voice.”


His voice didn’t make her want to vomit? He swallowed a smile, surprised at his amusement. He should be trying to find a way out of this mess, not wasting time in banter.


He cleared his throat. “The Universal is implanted into your brain in the areas that control speech and aural understanding. Usually, they are implanted when a person is a child and it grows with them. In an adult, the interface can be—distressing.”


“Disorienting is more like it,” she muttered and then lifted her eyes to him again. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but I want to leave. Now.”


Imperious. Revelin found himself inexplicably amused again. Such a small, soft female and she was issuing orders? To him? But fear remained in the fine shivers that shook her and in the shine in her eyes.


“I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”


Her chin snapped up and her arms tightened convulsively on her knees. “I can’t stay here. You can’t make me.”


“Actually, I can.”


He caught her as she launched herself at the door. He’d been expecting the response. What he hadn’t expected was the fury with which she fought his hold, nails clawing into his arms and her heels battering his legs. She slammed her head back and he narrowly avoided a broken nose. Rather than anger, her spitting, fear driven temper made him something in him soften. An unexpected response that stiffened his resolve.


“Cassie,” he said sternly when she showed no signs of giving up. “Cassie, listen to me.”


“No, you son of —” The blankness marked profanity the Universal refused to translate. “You can’t keep me here. It’ll kill my mother. I won’t let you get away with this!”


“I’m sorry for this. I’m sorry for your mother, but there is more at stake here than a single life, no matter how precious to you.”


She screamed, a shrill sound of fury and pain that struck at the heart of him. But honor held him to his course.


He held her until she wore herself out, hanging limply in his grasp, sobbing. With care, he laid her on the pad of the tube and brushed her hair out of her face. She turned away, rejecting his touch. Rejecting him.


“I’m sorry, Cassie,” he said again. “I know it means little to you now, but I am deeply sorry this has happened to you.”


She didn’t respond, her tears making silent tracks down her face and he left, making sure to lock the door behind him. No matter his personal feelings on the matter, he couldn’t risk setting her free. Llyr’s life and even her life would be forfeit if the Gurot found her.


He headed back to the common area, looking for Leiv. His second had much to answer for.