“Yes, well, they might have been criminals, that original bunch, but they were still Sha-Ka’ani warriors to start with. And their descendants might be familiar with advanced worlds, but they haven’t advanced all that far themselves. They’re still sword-wielders, and what better way to defeat sword-wielders than—”
“With sword-wielders,” Rourk finished for her, beaming. “Do you really have more like this one?”
“This one has a name,” Challen said stiffly.
“Ah, sure, Challen,” Rourk said uneasily. “You’ve just been so quiet, I—ah—”
“Don’t stick your foot in it.” Tedra chuckled. “If my warrior’s not saying much, it’s because he’s suffering a little cultural shock. He saw visuals of modern cities on the Rover, but it’s not the same as actually being inside one with air cruisers and fleet-wings flying all over the place. We Transferred down right to your front door, but that one brief look really—”
“You have made your point, woman,” Challen complained gruffly, a little too gruffly as far as Rourk was concerned.
The Kystrani forgot Challen’s earlier annoyance over his familiarity with Tedra and pulled her aside to whisper, “Are you nuts, teasing him like that? The man’s a farden gia—hey!”
He got picked up this time, and held up, and Challen was about to shake him, too, when Tedra got mad. “Dammit, warrior, that’s my friend you’re scaring the hell out of! Put him down right now!”
“Tedra, really, it’s all right,” Rourk insisted, more alarmed by her ready-to-fight tone. “Let him do whatever makes him happy.”
“It would make me happy did you keep your hands off my woman.” But Challen set him down as he said it.
“Sure. Whatever you say. I don’t even know her.”
“Cut it out, Rourk,” Tedra said in disgust. “And as for you”—she poked a finger in Challen’s chest— “you’ve got to get this thing under control before someone gets hurt. Now, I love it that you’re capable of feeling jealousy, but it’s groundless. Rourk is to me what Tamiron is to you, no more, no less, so I think you owe him an apology.”
Rourk almost choked on that one. “Tedra, please—”
“For Stars’ sake, Rourk,” she cut in, exasperated, “will you stop thinking the man’s going to flatten me? He’s not, you know. He’d die before he’d even put a bruise on me.”
“He would?”
“Certainly I would,” Challen said indignantly.
Rourk frowned then, at both of them. “What the hell’s going on here? And what is it with all these possessive ‘mys’? Did you adopt him, Tedra?”
“Real cute, babe. Give the man a little reassurance and he gets nasty. No, I didn’t adopt him. I signed up for double occupancy.”
“You didn’t. You did? With him?”
“I don’t know if I like your tone, Rourk.”
“But, Tedra, he’s—”
“Yes?” Her tone got menacing.
“He’s—”
“Yes?” Her tone got really menacing.
“Well, I don’t know how you could miss it. He’s a farden giant.”
“No kidding? My, how did I miss that? You see how blind love can be.”
“You love him, too?”
“You know, I think I’m going to kill you tonight, Rourk.”
Challen chuckled and pulled her to his side to wrap an arm around her waist. “I think I will believe now that you are only friends. He would not tease you otherwise.”
“You tease me all the time,” she pointed out. “And we’re much more than friends.”
“You will not attempt to provoke my jealousy again, woman.”
“You just can’t break that habit of telling me what to do, can you, even though my challenge loss debt has been paid in full.”
“Do you wish to challenge me again?”
“I just might.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” Rourk said, looking on in amazement. “Tell me you didn’t really challenge him, Tedra.”
“Of course I did. He’s not much bigger than that warrior Kowan was, and I took him down, didn’t I?”
“Not much bigger?” Rourk grinned. “Only about a foot, I’d say. How quickly did you lose the fight?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Who is this warrior Kowan?” Challen wanted to know, the signs of jealousy back in place.
Tedra rolled her eyes, while Rourk put a hand over his mouth to pretend he was coughing. But Challen was still awaiting an answer.
“Didn’t I tell you about Kowan, babe? I could’ve sworn I mentioned the handsome warrior who wanted to make a slave of me. But if you want to get at him, you’ll have to get inside Goverance Building, so why don’t we get down to discussing that, instead of all this nonsense? That is why we came here, remember?”
“Stars, Tedra, it’s just occurred to me that if we had a few more like Challen here, we might be able to get inside Goverance—”
He ran, but Challen held Tedra back. “Very funny, you jerk.” She glowered at her friend. “Now can we get serious? What is the current situation? Has Crad Ce Moerr relaxed enough to come out in public yet?”
“No, he’s still playing it very safe. And the situation is about what we anticipated. The bulk of the women were taken in the first three weeks. It’s slowed down, with a ship leaving for Sha-Ka’ar about every other week now, the cargo being kept at Goverance Building until departure.”
“And the rest of the female Secs from the outer areas?”
“We were able to warn only four. I’m sorry, Tedra, but they got the rest.”
She waved that aside. “We’ll get them back, and every other Kystrani.”
“How?”
“I’ve got an idea, but first we have to free Garr. Have you had word on him? Is he being treated okay?”
“They don’t dare harm him. He’s their only leverage for keeping the male Secs in line, those in the city anyway. They’ve still got communications in a blank-out, thanks to the Mock II in Goverance Building. And they’re still only letting traffic in, not out. It’s too bad that computer was never programmed to a single individual. If it had been linked to Garr as Martha was to you, Garr would have been freed a long time ago.”
“And we might have had an all-out war and a hell of a time winning it, or are you forgetting how easily those warriors defeated us with their Toreno steel weapons?”
“Ah, that’s a good point, and I guess the next major question is, do your warriors have Toreno steel?”
“Where do you think the Sha-Ka’ari armorers’ recipe came from? What I’ve brought back are sword-wielders to defeat sword-wielders, and mine are bigger, stronger, and they don’t particularly like slavers.”
“Even though they are in a sense related?”
“I think three hundred years has pretty much broken the ties,” she replied dryly. “Besides, they follow Challen, and he—”
“Follows you?”
“Not exactly.” Tedra grinned. “Things this big don’t take orders easily—unless they give permission first to be ordered around.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That’s a private joke, Rourk,” she said quickly, hearing the barbarian’s rumble. “But Challen is here because he has this thing about pleasing me. He really gets a kick out of it.”
“The woman is ‘going around the block’ to say what is important to her is important to me,” Challen explained.
“Isn’t that sweet, Rourk?” Tedra beamed.
“Any sweeter and we’ll get fat,” he teased, then added sincerely, “I’d say you hit the jackpot, babe.”
“I know.”
“So you’ve brought us an army. Now to figure a way to get it inside Goverance Building. That isn’t going to be easy. Crad has just about all his warriors securing the place, except those who still go out to collect the lawbreaking females. No one gets in without a very good reason.”
“You’re forgetting the Rover, babe. Martha is going to simply Tr
ansfer us inside the building.”
“Not us,” Challen clarified. “You, woman, will come nowhere near where warriors will be fighting.”
“Challen!”
Chapter Forty-five
It took three hours of shouting and arguing and coming close to challenging before the barbarian could be budged from his stand. But when Tedra tried a long shot and got Martha on line to ask her opinion, her contrary computer actually backed her up. She wouldn’t be doing any Transferring unless Tedra was included, and that took care of that.
Challen was not happy about it. He had to war with his need to keep Tedra safe and his desire to let her be herself, which he had come to realize was what had attracted him to her in the first place, her difference from other women. It was important to her to be part of the fighting. Martha’s compliance reminded him of that. But he liked it not.
Tedra wasn’t taking any chances that he’d change his mind again. She quickly concluded arrangements with Rourk, who would contact all their people who had been working toward liberation without success. Fortunately, there was no need to involve them in the fighting at Goverance Building, but there would still be warriors out in the city who would need to be taken care of, at least kept track of, and they could do that.
So it was less than another hour after leaving Rourk that Martha Transferred them all to different points inside Goverance Building. Tedra, Challen, and six others made their appearance right inside the Director’s office. And it was fortunate that Molecular Transfer was instantaneous, for Crad Ce Moerr was not alone, but was in conference with some of his warriors, ten to be exact, and all armed. Had Transferring been any slower, Tedra’s group could have had swords pointing at their throats before it was completed.
As it was, the opposite happened. The Sha-Ka’ari were too surprised to draw their weapons with any degree of swiftness, and were disarmed in a matter of minutes. Only one resisted, and he was made to regret it when Tamiron engaged him and made short work of it. Crad Ce Moerr, on the other hand, managed to sound an alarm. Tedra could have kicked herself for not anticipating that. So much for making the rest of it go easy.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” Crad said with full confidence even though his warriors were throwing down their weapons. “But you’re not getting out of here alive.”
“It sounds like that should have been my line,” Tedra replied, coming up to push the dictator back down in his seat. “Except I know who you are, you slime ball, and your fun’s over with here.”
“Because you say so?” he sneered. “Maybe you don’t know what you’re up against. I happen to have hundreds of warriors right here in this building.”
“So ... do ... I,” Tedra was delighted to tell him. “But you won’t be around to see the outcome. Martha?” She opened the link of her lazor. “Transfer this jerk to the Rover’s lockup. Garr can have the pleasure of disposing of him later.”
“You can’t—”
But the dictator blinked out before he could say any more, and although it gave Tedra a great deal of pleasure to have done that, she was reminded by a glance about the room that they weren’t finished yet.
“Where do you have Garr Ce Bernn?” she asked the nearest Sha-Ka’ari.
“The alarm was given, woman. He will be dead by now.”
“You’re lying,” she said angrily. “He’s the only bargaining power you guys got, or are you too stupid to know that?”
“Why does a woman speak for you?” the warrior demanded of Challen, who stood directly behind her.
“This is her world, thus is this her concern. I am here merely to see that she is protected in the doing of what she must do. Best you answer her now.”
“Protected?” Tedra snorted, swinging around to the barbarian and, in the process, letting her elbow connect with the belligerent warrior’s windpipe. “I don’t need protecting from jerks who don’t know what to do with a woman unless she’s a slave. Protected?” she snorted again and looked at another Sha-Ka’ari. This time she merely snapped, “Garr Ce Bernn?”
“Below,” the man answered immediately, his eyes on his friend rolling on the floor choking. “In the detaining rooms below.”
“Thank you,” Tedra replied on the way to the door. “Well, come on, protector. This isn’t over yet.”
“You have no reason to be angry, chemar, ” Challen said as he stopped her from opening the door before he could see what awaited on the other side. Nothing did.
“I’m not,” she admitted while she hurried her pace down the empty corridor. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried and needed to take it out on someone. They wouldn’t really kill Garr just because that farden alarm sounded, would they?”
“I would like to reassure you, but I cannot fathom the minds of warriors such as these.”
“Who can? Oh, Stars, I want to rush down there, Challen, but if they were going to kill him, it’s been done already. But if he’s still alive, then that alarm got him surrounded, so we’d be smart to gather our forces before we go any farther. And from the look of it, all the Sha-Ka’ari have either deserted the building or—”
“Or they have gathered below for a united defense.”
“Exactly.”
The latter proved to be true, much to the Sha-Ka’ani warriors’ delight. They’d come here to do some fighting, but hadn’t got much in so far. There had been some sporadic engagements throughout the building, but the bulk of the Sha-Ka’ari warriors had headed straight for the lower levels. Tedra could have gladly left them down there to rot, since there was only one way in or out, if Garr wasn’t down there with them.
Standing there looking at the six lifts that wouldn’t fit all of them at once, Tedra was ready to pull hairs. “It won’t work. The area in front of the lifts down there is as big as it is up here. They’ll be lined up ten deep just waiting for the doors to open. I ought to have Martha Transfer them all into deep space.”
“And have your Garr go with them? He has not a signal on him that Martha can recognize, as do we,” Challen pointed out.
Tedra stopped her pacing to gape at him. “I must have left my brains back on the Rover. You expected to pop in on them all along, didn’t you?”
“Certainly. Why else were we each supplied with the homing device?”
“So we could all Transfer into the building at the same time,” she replied, grinning. “And if we can do it once, why not again? Oh, Martha?”
It was done in a matter of moments. The scene before them now was a solid wall of Sha-Ka’ari warriors facing the lifts as Tedra had assumed they would be. What she hadn’t counted on was their numbers.
“Stars, I think we’re outnumbered,” she said beneath her breath, but Challen heard her.
“Best we even the odds, then.”
He chuckled deeply, which had the Sha-Ka’ari turning en masse. Tedra would have preferred figuring out some other option, but it was too late for that. She was shoved behind Challen, then behind the next warrior, then behind the next, until she was in back of them all whether she wanted to be there or not. She couldn’t make use of her own weapon with her own warriors all in front of her. She just had to stand there and listen to the racket they were making as the battle joined, doing nothing to help, unless . . .
“Martha, how about getting me from one side of this area to the other?”
“Forget it, kiddo. I didn’t put you down there to die.”
“You didn’t put me down here to twiddle my thumbs either!” Tedra snarled.
“So why don’t you see if you can’t find Garr while your friends are busy?”
Tedra made a face. “You really did forget to send my brains down here with me, didn’t you?”
Her answer was one of Martha’s best simulations of laughter. But Tedra wasted no more time on self-disgust. She turned to face the closed doors that surrounded the circular area. They opened into rooms of different sizes, she knew, and she also knew which one was the largest and most likely to have been turn
ed into permanent living quarters for a valuable prisoner. She approached it now, and sure enough, a special security lock was in evidence. Tedra smiled to herself. The dum-dums had used what was on hand. Similar to an identilock, it worked on visual identification, voice verification, and handprints, and gave clearance only to guards—and all Goverance Building Sec l’s. And since the Sha-Ka’ari hadn’t figured on any Sec 1 ‘s showing up, she’d wager just about anything the locks weren’t modified.
Sure enough, the door slid open at her command. And Garr was there, seated in a chair in the center of the room. A warrior stood behind him holding a sword across his throat, a Toreno shield raised to protect him. Tedra leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her chest, which pointed her lazor at the ceiling. It wasn’t going to do her much good against Toreno steel. And she still didn’t want to kill this particular warrior.
“Well, hello, Kowan. Fancy meeting you here.”
The poor guy was doubting his sight as well as his hearing. He wasn’t expecting a woman to come through the door, certainly not one wearing a Sec 1 uniform, and certainly not one he thought he knew very intimately. Garr, on the other hand, wasn’t a bit surprised.
“You certainly took your sweet time, Tedra.” He grinned at her.
“I had to make a detour to another Star System.” She grinned back.
Kowan had recovered by then, enough to say, “You will put down your weapon, woman, or I will kill him.”
“Oh, come on, warrior, you’re not going to play stupid, are you? Take a look behind me. Those are barbarians making mincemeat out of your friends. Not Kystrani Secs, but warriors from your mother planet. Sha-Ka’an ring a bell? No? Well, no matter. But take my word for it, you guys don’t stand a chance. Besides, I’ve already captured your fearless leader and put him where you’ll never get him back, so the slave farm is closed. Why don’t you play smart and surrender while you still can?”
“To a woman?” he snorted.
“Well, if that’s your only difficulty, I can get a Sha-Ka’ani in here for you to hand your sword over to. But I’m a Sec 1 before I’m a woman, and I hate to tell you this, Kowan, but I already took you down once—or haven’t you ever wondered why you have no memories of our time together after we arrived at our destination?”