The Segonian, page 7
“One body spotted,” Maarev announced grimly over the comm as he slipped behind a jagged slab of ship. “A male, wearing no suit.”
“Any sign of Eliana?” Dagon asked.
The two soldiers tracked back and forth through the debris field.
“No,” Maarev said at length.
Dagon sat back in his seat. “Bring the man in for identification.”
“Yes, Commander.”
He clenched his teeth. If Eliana wasn’t there…
“Do you think the Gathendiens reached her first?” Barus asked.
“I don’t know.” He hoped not but could find no other explanation.
Janek shook his head. “She’s here somewhere. I know it.”
Though Dagon wanted to believe that, his men would’ve found her. “The Lasaran suits are bright white. Maarev and Liden wouldn’t miss her.”
“Then why am I still receiving her comm signal?” Janek countered. “She’s here. I’m certain of it. She has to be located within three kells from us.”
Dagon leaned forward, watching Liden maneuver the dead man inside the retrieval vessel. “Efren.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Escort Maarev and Liden back, then execute a search of the surrounding area. We’re still receiving a comm signal from Eliana and believe she may be nearby.”
“Yes, Commander.”
As soon as Maarev, Liden, and the deceased male were safely aboard the retrieval vessel, the three fighter ships peeled away and shot off in different directions, disappearing into the darkness.
Long moments ticked past. At least, they seemed long to Dagon. He didn’t know why the Earthling… Earth woman, he corrected himself… had come to feel so important to him, but she had.
“I see her!” Efren suddenly shouted. “Or rather, I see someone in a Lasaran spacesuit.”
“Coordinates?”
As soon as Efren relayed Eliana’s coordinates, both the Ranasura and the retrieval vessel raced forward.
Had Dagon not been so worried, he would’ve smiled. His men were as eager to rescue her as he was.
“There!” Galen pointed.
A tiny white dot guarded by three black fighters grew in front of them.
The figure in white didn’t move at their approach, didn’t wave or react in any way to the craft around her. Nor did Eliana’s voice greet them.
Heavy silence settled upon them all as Maarev left the retrieval vessel and jetted toward the figure.
“It’s a woman,” Maarev confirmed.
Dagon released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Alive or dead?”
“I can’t tell. Her eyes are closed and she appears to be injured.”
“Bring her aboard,” Dagon ordered. Rising, he strode past Barus. “You have the bridge.”
Once in the hallway, he ducked into the ladder well and skimmed down to the bottom deck. Less than a minute later, he entered a room separated from Hangar 1 by the same clear, unbreakable crystal that formed the bridge’s large window.
Maarev flew inside the bay, a bulky white figure clutched to his chest. The fighters followed, careful not to hit the duo.
The bay doors closed. Maarev’s boots lowered to the floor.
As soon as gravity and environment was restored to the hangar, Dagon hit the control that opened the large door. Too impatient to wait for it to rise fully, he ducked under it and strode forward.
Maarev retracted his helmet and adjusted his hold on Eliana. “I did a quick scan and found no signs of life.”
Dagon’s heart clenched. “Give her to me.” He slipped an arm beneath her knees and wrapped the other around her back. Her helmeted head rolled, coming to rest against his chest… and Dagon looked upon her for the first time.
Her face was pale, her features gaunt. The eyelashes that rested against her hollow cheeks were long and dark, the hair he could barely glimpse black.
She weighed so little, even in the bulky suit, and was so small.
Swiveling around, he left the bay. “Adaos.”
“Yes, Commander,” the chief medical officer answered in his earpiece.
“Meet me in Med Bay.”
“I’m already there.”
Dagon stepped into the nearest lift. The door slipped closed, leaving him alone with the Earth woman.
“Eliana,” he murmured, jostling her a bit. “Eliana? Can you hear me?”
She remained still and quiet in his arms.
As soon as the doors opened, he headed for Med Bay.
Adaos waited inside as promised and motioned to the nearest treatment bed.
Dagon gently placed Eliana on it, absently noting a body covered with a sheet on another bed. Finding the manual latches for the helmet, he flipped them to detach it from her too-big suit, then slipped a hand inside and cupped the back of her head to elevate it enough to ease the protective barrier off.
She had long hair. It poured out of the helmet like water, trailing over his hand and falling off the edges of the bed. Over one ear, the dark tresses were matted with blood. The same side of her face was scraped raw and spattered with crimson streaks and splotches.
Dagon withdrew his touch and stared down at her.
She was not butt-ugly as she had claimed. Even gaunt and wounded, she was pretty, her features delicate.
Adaos ran a small handheld scanner across her chest. Meeting Dagon’s gaze, he shook his head. “No heartbeat detected.”
“She said she could slow it.” Dagon could not yet bring himself to admit defeat.
Adaos held up the device he kept with him at all times. “Enough to confound my scanner?” Sorrow filled his features. “I don’t believe so, my friend.”
Dagon stared down at her. “We were too late.”
Adaos nodded. “We all knew we would be. It was simply difficult for us to admit it when she gave us such hope.”
Shortly after his last communication with her, Dagon had caught two of his men wagering over whether the Earthling would be alive or dead when they found her. Infuriated by their callous disregard, he had ordered Janek to replay every communication he had shared with Eliana… except for the seven minutes he had restricted to himself after she requested those odd moments of privacy in which it sounded as though she had hurt herself.
After listening to her conversations with Dagon and the other crewmen on the bridge, every man on the ship had—from that point on—adopted his hope that they would find her in time. Some had even suggested he divert power from shields so they could reach her faster even though they knew they would be placing themselves in danger.
“She isn’t what I expected of an Earthling,” Dagon murmured as he stared down at her.
Adaos nodded. “The Sectas led us to believe Earthlings bore no strength, no honor.”
“Eliana possessed both in abundance.” Dagon glanced down her body, which was still encased in the suit. “She’s smaller than I anticipated.” For some reason, that made his failure to rescue her even harder to accept. “Rid her of the suit, run the scans her commanding officer requested, then clean her up. Let me know when she’s ready to be placed in cryo for transport to Lasara.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Dagon could not stop himself from fingering a lock of her hair.
It was as soft as a fentorian feather.
Regret chilled him. He should have known he couldn’t save her. He should not have let hope sway him.
Turning on his heel, he left the infirmary and headed back to the bridge.
Adaos watched Dagon leave. Though his friend and commander’s face remained stoic, the medic could tell the Earth woman’s demise had struck a blow.
Even Adaos felt some despair. He had listened to the woman’s conversations with Dagon. The commander had broadcast them throughout the ship after delivering a furious reprimand to two men wagering over her fate. And like Dagon, Adaos had found her rather astonishing. And quite likable.
Until then, he had not understood Dagon’s inability to see that she must be deceiving him. As a healer, Adaos had concluded she must be in an escape pod in order to have survived as long as she had. He had studied the detailed descriptions of Earthling anatomy and physiology and known she could not possibly slow her breathing enough to make a day’s worth of oxygen last a week.
Yet here she lay… in a suit. No pod had been found anywhere near her.
How had she done it?
Retrieving a scalpel, he began to cut the suit off her, careful not to nick her skin with the laser. He sliced the suit into several pieces that could more easily be removed.
Once he had discarded them all, he stared down at her.
“She’s so small,” he murmured, parroting Dagon’s words. Were she to stand up, she wouldn’t even reach his shoulder.
And she was far too thin, confirming that she had indeed survived over a week without food or water before she had died.
The clothing she wore was not typical of Lasarans. A black shirt hugged her from shoulder to wrist and down to her hips, the dark fabric outlining unnaturally conspicuous ribs and a shrunken stomach. Though she was clearly underweight, her breasts were nevertheless fuller than most Segonian women’s. Matching black trousers with many pockets loosely covered slender hips and outlined prominent hipbones.
Most of the fabric covering her right side was peppered with holes torn by shrapnel from what he guessed had been an explosion, judging by the scorch marks that marred it. The skin on the right side of her neck bore a raw wound, as did her right cheek and jaw. Her shirt and pants on the right side—as well as any exposed skin along it—were liberally stained with blood on the shoulder, arm, waist, hip, and leg down to her ankle.
The outside of her protective suit had been pristine before he’d cut it. So she must have guessed correctly. Someone had to have stuffed her into the suit while she was unconscious.
He peered at her damaged side and swept his scanner over her. Broken bones. Multiple deep lacerations. A severe head wound. How had she even survived these injuries?
Adaos retrieved a hover tray with a neat array of tools. Leaning over her, he gently nudged back one eyelid and shined a light in her brown eye.
No pupillary reaction.
Again he ran his handheld scanner over her and found no heartbeat.
Silently he reprimanded himself for hoping for another outcome. He was a healer. He knew what was and wasn’t possible. He didn’t need the extra tests Eliana’s commanding officer had ordered to confirm she was dead. He had seen enough bodies while serving in the Segonian military to know. But he would perform them anyway.
Grabbing his med tablet, he tapped the surface several times, activating the full-body diagnostic scanner. A mechanical arm descended from the ceiling and positioned a wand above Eliana’s head. Slowly it began to travel down her body, casting a narrow ray of light over her all the way down to her toes. Retracting, it hovered above her chest.
Adaos decided to take a blood sample while he awaited the results. Clearly, there was more to these Earthlings than either the Lasarans or the Sectas knew. He was very interested in—
“Heartbeat detected,” the comprehensive scanner announced in the female Segonian voice allotted to all subsections of the ship’s computer.
Eyes widening, Adaos spun around. “What?”
“Heartbeat detected.”
“Just one?”
“Affirmative.”
It couldn’t be possible, could it?
He moved closer to the bed. “Any breaths taken?”
“Negative.”
“Search for activity on a cellular level.”
“Searching.”
Adaos studied Eliana’s still form but could find no discernable trace of life. Her chest did not rise and fall. No pulse thrummed beneath the skin of her neck. Her eyelids did not twitch.
“Cellular activity present,” the comprehensive scanner announced.
It didn’t make sense. “Have you detected any other heartbeats?”
“Negative.”
“Could you be mistaken?”
“Negative. Cellular anomalies detected.”
“What kind of anomalies?”
“Inconclusive.”
He frowned. Was the scanner malfunctioning? “Perform a systems analysis.”
“Performing systems analysis.”
Leaning over Eliana, he again peeled back one eyelid and shined a light in her eye.
No reaction. He ran his handheld scanner over her once more and again found no heartbeat.
The comprehensive scanner must be—
“Systems analysis complete. All systems are performing as intended.”
Perhaps he should move the Earth woman to the next bed and use that scanner instead, just to be sure.
He set his tablet on the tray and nudged it out of the way.
“Brain activity detected,” the scanner announced.
Spinning around, Adaos stared at the Earth woman.
“Heartbeat detected.”
Eyes widening, he approached her.
What the srul was happening?
Though light dragged her—kicking and screaming—toward consciousness, Eliana neither moved nor made a sound. Pain inundated her. Hunger gnawed at her. And thirst…
The light vanished. Darkness returned. But it was no longer complete. Her eyelids merely shielded her from whatever light hovered above her.
Where was she? Why was she so weak? Why did such agony assail her?
Somewhere nearby, a man muttered something in a foreign language.
Alarm cut through her like a knife. She had lived four centuries, give or take a decade, and had learned a lot of languages in that time. Yet she didn’t recognize the one he spoke.
She raised her eyelids a tiny bit, just enough to allow her a slit through which she could better ascertain her situation. A cold white room surrounded her. No artistic ornamentation graced the walls, just cabinets, beds, and what appeared to be medical equipment.
A tall man in pale gray clothing stood a few feet away, staring at an electronic tablet of some sort.
Fear struck as she closed her eyes.
This was not the infirmary in the headquarters of the human network that aided Immortal Guardians. Nor was it the infirmary in one of Seth’s or David’s homes. And the man muttering to himself not far away was definitely not a Second rendering aid or one of the human network’s physicians.
When she peeked again, she noticed a still form covered by a sheet on a table not far away.
She closed her eyes. Fury replaced fear.
Gershom, the powerful enemy the Immortal Guardians had recently defeated, had once worked with Russian mercenaries. He had also twisted part of the American military into doing his bidding. Had a new enemy arisen to take his place? Another mercenary group, perhaps, eager to get their hands on an Immortal Guardian so they could use the virus that infected them to create a race of supersoldiers they could hire out to the highest bidder?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
But how had they gotten their hands on her? And where was she? Was this a mercenary compound?
Immortal Guardians in North Carolina had destroyed two or three mercenary groups in recent years. But she had not been aware of any such troubles arising in Texas, where she had been stationed for a couple of years now.
She searched her scattered memories for an explanation. Had she been hunting? Though Gershom had been defeated, the vampire population remained unusually high. So high she and most of her brethren hunted in pairs to ensure they could defeat the larger numbers they encountered on a nightly basis.
Had mercenaries engaged in a hunt of their own, hiding until they came upon her after a kill? Was the body on that other bed a vampire? Dread suffused her. Or was it her hunting partner? Had they killed Nick? Or Rafe?
Try though she might, she could find no memory of such nor of being captured.
Logic intruded. It couldn’t be one of her brethren or a vampire. The body would’ve already deteriorated by now if it were. So it must be some other poor victim. Perhaps a human the vampires had been feeding upon when Eliana had attacked?
Cracking her lids once more, she checked to see if the man in gray was facing away from her, then tried to move.
She was so weak!
Her rage increased. Only one substance on the planet could render her this weak and steal her memory: the only tranquilizer that affected both Immortal Guardians and vampires. The one created by humans to torture Ami when she’d been held prisoner in that government-funded research installation. And only enemies of the Immortal Guardians had possessed the tranquilizer in the past. Which meant this bastard was a mercenary and was also probably one of several who had been torturing her.
Fortunately, the drug was beginning to wear off.
A female voice emerged from a speaker somewhere above Eliana, but the cadence of her words sounded a little off, as if she were a computer or Siri or the like.
The man mumbled more foreign words, reached for something, and turned to face her. In one hand, he held what appeared to be a syringe with a long needle.
No way in hell was she going to let that bastard tranq her again.
The female voice spoke again.
The man paused, then moved closer. His brows drew down as he leaned over her.
The moment he reached toward her face, Eliana struck.
Pain forced a cry from her lips as she thrust one hand out and knocked the needle from his grasp. She fisted the other hand in his shirt and yanked hard.
Yelping, the man lost his balance and fell half on top of her.
Before he could recover, she raised her head, let her fangs descend, and sank them into his neck.
The man spat out what she suspected was a curse word and struggled for a moment, then relaxed against her. When the virus that infected her had made her immortal, glands had formed above her fangs that released a substance not unlike GHB under the pressure of a bite. That chemical now lulled her torturer into complacency and would rob him of any memory of the attack.
She moaned as her fangs drew his blood directly into parched veins. The beat of her struggling heart strengthened. Soon the virus would go to work, repairing what damage it could until she could find another blood source.
