Page 10 of Infiltration

Tranis relaxed. “Thank you, Admiral. We’ll be awaiting Captain Kila’s report. I’d appreciate it if he sent it directly to me, as well as you.”

“So ordered.” Piras paused and made an effort to appear pleasant. Or maybe it was genuine. In certain respects, the man once known as the Terror of the Fleet had mellowed since Tranis had served as his first officer. “I understand congratulations are in order. I hope your Matara is doing well?”

“Thank you. The pregnancy is in its early stages, but all seems well as far as the mother and child are concerned. We’re very excited, as you might imagine.”

“No doubt some members of your clan show it better than others.” There was a chuckle in his tone. “I wish you the very best with this exciting addition to your family.”

“Again, thank you.”

Piras returned to business. “I’ll confirm when Captain Kila’s ship is on route to Bi’is. Piras out.”

The man disappeared. Tranis clicked his own com unit off, then the sound blocking device, which had made their conversation private.

He stared moodily at the window vid displaying the sea beyond the installation. Fleet Headquarters was based on an island several miles out in the ocean. The vast expanse of green water suggested serenity and peace. Tranis wished his mood would cooperate.

It was difficult. His Nobek clanmate Lidon had recently left his job at Kalquor’s Global Security law enforcement at the fleet’s request. At Tranis’ own personal request. Uniquely qualified to fulfill a necessary task, he’d gone on a special assignment off-planet the day prior. Despite its temporary nature, Tranis hated every second the bold warrior was gone. Talking to Piras, who’d been Lidon’s intended Dramok before Tranis had appeared on the scene, hadn’t helped his funk.

Now Piras would send his own Nobek, Captain Kila, into the heart of a mystery that might prove treacherous. He’d already sacrificed much of his life for Kalquor’s sake. No doubt he wondered when fate would decree he’d sacrificed enough.

Tranis’ gaze went to the missing Ilid’s last com to his father, displayed on a holoscreen hovering over his computer. He wondered what had happened to the spyship the young man served on…what had happened to the ensign himself. Was the lad safe? The last line of his message sounded like a heartbreaking goodbye to his mother and three fathers.

My love is forever with my parents.

Tranis thought of his mate Cassidy, of the child she carried. He tried to imagine being the father to a young man like Ilid and wondering whether his child was in danger. His stomach curdled.

Find the missing ship, Kila. Bring Ilid home to his family.

* * * *

Spyship shuttle, location unknown

Dramok Ilid opened his eyes, trading unfeeling black for agony and a strobing red mosaic of discordant and blurred shapes. He wondered where he was, but the hurt was too great to rise and examine his surroundings.

“Help,” he tried to call. His voice emerged garbled, an injured animal’s moan.

The utter silence told him he was alone. Slowly, his vision came into focus, but what he saw didn’t make any greater sense. Wiring harnesses hung from above, loops and thick strands of black, their contents spewed in silvery tassels. He gradually made sense of what looked like a distorted and crazy-cornered shuttle’s cockpit.

Slowly, the fog in his brain dissipated so he could remember. The orderly Imdiko Darir had released him from the stasis field in which he’d been imprisoned while Dr. Umen…rather, the awful entity puppeting Umen…had carried out painful and disfiguring experiments. Ilid and Darir had gone to Engineering in the effort to sabotage the spyship, which had been taken over by shadowy figures enslaving most of the crew. They’d been cornered, and during the fight to escape, Darir had accidentally fired on a plasma conduit as he was overcome by the Darks. A chain reaction had guaranteed the ship’s destruction, and Ilid had been trying to escape on board a shuttle…this shuttle…as the spyship blew apart around it.

He was alive. The shuttle had somehow held together, more or less, and Dramok Ilid was alive to tell the tale.

Maybe not. He was in excruciating pain from head to toe. He sat in the cockpit seat and had a vague memory of being jerked from it and slammed to the control panel his head and chest now rested on before blessed darkness had closed in.

He might have remained draped on the controls, hoping and waiting for unconsciousness to rescue him, but the knowledge a medical kit was stowed on board goaded him. There would be a supply of pain-inhibiting drugs in the kit. If he were dosed, he could think clearly enough to fly the shuttle to safety. If it proved incapable of flying, he could attempt to attract rescue.

Already wincing in anticipation of pain, Ilid forced himself to rise from the control panel. It was worse than he’d expected. The howl of agony in his belly and chest rose to a shriek. A thin scream squeezed between his gritted teeth. He tasted blood, but he continued to push upright on a crooked, broken arm. If he quit, he knew he wouldn’t attempt to rise again. He’d simply lie there and wait to die.

Somehow, he managed to sit up until his shoulders met the seat’s backrest. Ilid stopped moving then, panting from the agony of breathing and spitting blood. He was uncaring of the flood of tears pouring down his cheeks. Maybe it was beneath a Dramok to cry, but had anyone been around to dare to say so, Ilid would have told them to go fuck themselves dry.

He hurt, body and soul. He’d cry every second of whatever was left of his miserable life if he wanted.

The torment refused to dull, but as the minutes passed, Ilid grew accustomed to its vicious grip sufficiently to consider his next move. First, he had a look around the cockpit as much as the hurt in his neck would allow. He could barely turn his head to the left, but he sat on that side of the space, so most of what he needed to see there was in front of him.

The console was dark but for a few blinking indicators. There was a slight indentation he took to be where he’d landed on it. Considering military shuttles were built to withstand the punches of temperamental Nobeks, his insides should have been pulverized by the blow.

As bad as he hurt, they probably had been. The anguish of breathing assured him he’d broken a number of ribs, if not all. He guessed only his armored uniform had saved his life.

Ilid licked his lips. He was no mechanic, but the wiring waving in his face from the ceiling and the random flashes of the console’s grid told him the shuttle was probably no more than a hunk of space junk. It would be a miracle if anything worked. He hated to confirm nothing would.

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