Chapter Sixteen: Dissolution — Part 6

“My entire family was killed by the Chran. My husband, my father, and my child.”

“You were married? But you’re so young.” Didi did her best to keep the judgment out of her voice.

“I was fifteen when I got pregnant, started that shit young in my family, got it over with early. We got married, and my father and I went into smuggling together. There’s lots of illegal stuff to move: Stuff that can be stolen; Stuff that in its absence won’t hurt anybody. Art, for instance, could easily be taken from museums, and governmental information collected for ransom. My father was a master of stealing information. Me, I loved art. My husband was a talented young artist and my father saw it as the family duty to protect such talent by ensuring that the young man didn’t have to work hard labor or train by the warrior’s code, or try to apply all of his life’s effort to the hard and dangerous work of smuggling.

“We had fled Vodia for Grid because of our profession, and because of some disagreements in politics, heading further into space, and Grid became our second home. Toddy stayed home and took care of our son, Lucas, while my father and I made long trips to exotic lands. Life was peaceful, money was flowing, and our child was growing up strong. Then the Chran entered into the Grid star system. My father had stayed behind for a trip, taking a holiday to spend some time with his grandson. On the day the Chran attacked Grid, I was the only one off planet, the only one to be spared their brutal assault.”

“Lucas of the Storm. What a beautiful name.” Didi said, holding Shadow tightly, not knowing what else to do.

Shadow cleared her throat. “I came back within a couple of hours of the Chran invasion. The Chran had swept across Sector Six in a death wave. My husband and son were both dead. I found my father’s body a half-mile from the house. All I had to do was follow the trail of Chran bodies. He killed over three hundred of them before they put him down.

“They cornered him in a ravine, but he didn’t go down easy. Three-dozen Chran lay dead around him. As punishment, they’d left him alive, torn to pieces, beyond the repair of any medic. A single machine kept his brain alive. He told me to run, and keep running. His voice was mute; it had no lungs to support it, but I could read his lips and I knew what he wanted. I was too bent on vengeance to run. I kicked the machine loose from his infected, maggot-ridden skull, and let him die. Then I found the nearest Chran camp and killed all of them. I killed three more squadrons before retreating to my ship and fleeing to the Hub. If I’d known that they had a unified race memory, I might have fled for deep space and started over somewhere else. Or I would have killed more of them, to let them know that the Storm Clan does not forgive such cruelty. Ferret wanting to be an artist flooded me with those memories.”

“You’re only twenty five, right?” Didi said, doing some mental math.

“Yeah, almost. How old are you?” Shadow dropped low in the water, her lips just above its surface.

“Sixteen, almost. So long as I breathe, Ferret will be safe, I can promise that. I am trained well enough to keep that promise.” Didi paused. “Xeti likes you. He’s only nineteen, though.”

“How can you tell he likes me?” Shadow asked.

“I listened to his words. Isn’t that how you find things out?” Didi said.

“I feel them, inside, like a voice, or a wave.” Shadow said.

“What can you feel about me then?” Didi asked

“I feel your heartbeat. I felt your sweet breath on my neck. I feel your lust, the remnants of a strong infatuation for Zach. I sense you’re jealous of me and angry at Roxy. I also can tell you persuaded me to open up to you, but now you’re regretting it a bit.” Across the room, a glass at Shadow’s desk shattered, sending shining splinters everywhere.

“I’ll clean that up.” Didi started to get up, but Shadow stopped her.

“You don’t have shoes. The drones will get it.”

In response to the glass, a small, obviously discontented cleaning drone slid from the wall. It paused at the edge of the glass, and seemed to be fathoming how the glass could have broken without being moved, circling the site cautiously, trying to locate every shard. It finally decided on a course of action, dispatching hundreds of tiny sweepers to work across the entire room, over the tabletop and floors, collecting every shard of glass.

“Sorry about the glass.” Didi said.

“One of your angels must have knocked it over.”

“Don’t tease me.” Didi said, the sweat of a hot bath running down her back.

“I wasn’t. I’m sorry I startled you. When I’m fighting, I feel different things. I feel weaknesses in armor, I sense vital points in body and fighting style and can see them as energy patterns, and I see the same things when I’m talking to somebody in a hot bath, even when I trust them.”

“You’re scaring me.” Didi kept stroking Shadow’s hair.

“I can sense that too.” Shadow said.

“Oh.”

“Telekinesis is a well needed talent, a fighter can be telekinetic, but not a warrior. You’ll make a fine fighter.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A fighter defends and competes. A warrior conquers and destroys.”

“And what are you?”

“Depends on my mood. When you’re done savoring your success at influencing me and choking on its repercussons, tell Xeti that he’s going to be your sparring partner. Training begins tomorrow morning.”

“Why did we bond so quickly?” Didi wondered.

“We’re lonely.” Shadow replied, her voice a muted rasp.

Didi hugged Shadow for several moments. The Drone, having finished with cleaning, left them alone. Not thinking, Didi lightly bit Shadow’s neck, slightly in play, slightly in anger.

“I am jealous of you.” Didi said, sounding ashamed. “Xeti loves you. Zach couldn’t wait to leave me alone.”

“He was probably afraid I’d splay him from spleen to nuts if he tried anything. He would have been covered in laser burns if he’d stayed, anyway. Roxy’s very protective of you, I haven’t figured out why.” Shadow smiled, turning to look straight into Didi’s eyes.

“It’s not fair.” Didi said.

“We’ll find you someone special, I promise.” Shadow said.

Didi couldn’t imagine Shadow ever being a matchmaker. On the brighter side, the woman wasn’t one to go back on her word. Didi tried to be strong, got up, took a towel from the linen closet, and dried off quickly. She redressed and left Shadow to soak. Didi had been alone her entire life, but she wasn’t about to tell Shadow that. As far as Didi was concerned, Captain Storm knew too much already, and had suffered too much to appreciate the suffering in Didi’s pampered life. Didi had influenced the moment, created the mental triggers that would cause Shadow to lower her guard and tell her story. That Shadow knew what she was doing meant that she had chosen to go along with it. Didi shivered at the implications of that realization.

* * *

In the middle of her sleep, Shadow sat up, her head aching with pain. It was similar to the pain she’d felt when the Hub and most of Sector Four was destroyed by the Chran nuclear strike. Only this was much more distant, but significantly more devastating. This felt like an odd experience, and she knew, deep down, that another brutal attack had occurred on another, human populated planet. Shadow knew the location instinctively, knew that if her intuition were correct, that this second attack, though completely unrelated to the first, had been even more severe than the attack on Grid. Half stumbling, half awake, she walked into Didi’s quarters, kicked her out of bed. Didi stared up her, blinking in surprise. Shadow helped Didi to a standing position, and helped her get dressed.

“Sorry to be rude, but I need your help. We’re changing course. I need two more hands than I have to do that while the transgalactic is engaged.”

“Where are we going?” Didi felt her shoulders slump as she followed Shadow to the pilot’s seat.

“We’re going to my home. Vodia is under attack.” Shadow dragged Didi along to the cockpit.

“How do you know?” Didi asked.

“There are things I just know.” Shadow said.

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