The Silka
Chapter Twenty Two
Marc frowned as he stared into the guts of an unfamiliar piece of hardware. What he really needed was a brain to coerce into doing this for him. He should, by rights, have been sitting like a fat toad in the middle of a complex metaconcert instead of infiltrating a Star Lord's lair. He really needed to have a talk with Chris. If he lived through this.
"Quit bitching," Christopher said in his head. "You had your chance to stay home all comfy cozy."
"You won't have to face Dinah later. She won't mind us doing this, only that she didn't get a chance to play too."
Marc listened, his connection to the metaconert always there to feed them data on the war that raged around them.
His biggest surprise had been the Cephi ships who'd come to fight with them, Aaru and Ther'lin willing to risk themselves for this battle, only two of many.
"You must be delusional from all the dust under there. Dinah will string me up if you get so much as a scratch. She's got a thing for you I think," Christopher retorted, remarkably cheerful under the circumstances. "Why don't you just pull out your death ray laser gun and blast 'em all to smithereens. Break everything and it follows you've broken the one we need broken," Christopher explained.
"Bloody youngsters. No understanding of the beauty inherent in subtlety and cunning. Granted, hitting things hard and often works in some instances but in this one I'd like what we do, and that we've been here, to remain, shall we say, unexposed."
"Well there is that," Christopher conceded. "But I just sent this guy away for the third time. He really wants to come in here." He concentrated for a moment then turned back to Marc. "He's got a mind like a toilet, too," he said in disgust. "Now, to get back to the point, there's ten thousand dragons on the surface, or it seems like it anyway. Get them to blow the shields. Or are we keeping the fact of them a secret for the main event?"
"I'm sure they know we have dragons here. But the less they know about them, and how many, and that they are good at fighting the better I like it. Besides, we should be able to handle this ourselves, don't you think?" Marc reached into the guts of the system and finessed a wire off one lead. "There maybe that will do it."
"So go ahead and test it," Christopher said. "We still have time to get back before Dinah knows we're gone."
"Okay, here goes..." Marc flipped a switch. Lights pulsed, and a sound something like a food processor started up. "God, I'm brilliant," Marc said chortling with glee.
"Then let's get the hell out of here," Christopher said. "Unless you want to poke around some more, really get the adrenalin firing."
"Hush, or I'll tell everyone to call you Chris," Marc said as he zapped the two of them away from the ship they'd managed to board and onto Cola who'd been waiting for them in a pocket of interdimensional peace.
"Now what could Dinah possibly get mad about with me for that. Not a scratch on me," Marc said to the air.
"That you didn't tell her, that she didn't get to go, that you didn't tell her...oh wait I already said that one," Christopher quipped. "I mean we agreed to table the idea for a day or two until we were surer of our plans and then five minutes later you've got me cornered in the cloak room, telling me to get my dagger."
Marc was still grinning when Cola materialized them just above the dragon lair on Earth. He was picturing the meeting, where he'd agreed to hold off on infiltrating the Star Lord fleet until they had all the players in place to create a diversion. Oh well, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
He lost his grin when he saw Dinah standing not far away tapping her foot and looking pissed.
"I got this message," she said, "telling me you'd run out for a quart of milk and would be back soon. And here it is hours later and you don't even have the milk!"
"But I have something so much better!" Marc replied, tapping the side of his head. "a core dump of how their targetting array works. And Chris was invaluable except he forgot the milk."
"I forgot the milk?" Christopher gasped, indignant at the slander. "I didn't even know about it. But if it's so important," he said, holding out a hand that suddenly had a quart of milk in it, "here you are."
Dinah fixed him with a glare. "Jack ass."
"Feel honored, Chris. She reserves that invective for the best of us," Marc offered with a smirk.
"Then she slugs them," Laz pointed out from the sidelines. "So I'd step back if I were you."
Dinah ground her teeth, audibly. "You went off after we decided to wait," she said, deciding that her grievance was with Marc and the others were merely gnats he was encouraging to distract her.
"I did. Easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. A major tenet of my philosophy." Marc eyed her warily as he said it, scanning her for weaponry.
Dinah looked him up and then down, checking for damage. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
"What did I say?" Marc asked the ether. Ingev snorted.
"She's really pissed," Laz observed, patting him on the shoulder as he headed out to confer with the dragons, who were still arriving in what seemed like droves. "When you finally get there, the make up sex should be great." He paused at the door. "When you finally get there."
"I'll never understand women," Marc groused.
"Logical, loving, and..." Anja was saying to explain it to Marc.
"Laconic?" Reno suggested.
"Hit him," Marc muttered as he hurried after Dinah.
She'd walked out, heading for the forest, looking for some place private where she could get control of herself, control of the devastating relief that had flooded her when he got back safe, driving out the paralyzing terror when she realized what he'd done, where he'd gone. She'd walked out because if she hadn't she'd have been on her knees in tears in front of them all. Her face was drenched with them before she'd gone ten feet. She made it into the trees at the edge of the village, out of sight when her knees gave out and the nausea took over and she found herself retching, leaning against a tree, while she sobbed.
"I'm sorry," he said from behind her, sounding as if it were killing him to watch her. Through their bond he knew, felt, tasted her fear and her relief.
She gulped, dragging in air and without a word turned, flinging herself against him, her hands convulsing in the fabric covering his back, soaking his front with tears.
"Should I not fight this war? Leave it to the others? We could just... I don't know... leave."
She shook her head violently, an emphatic no. She already knew this was the price she paid for loving him. He'd never change and neither would she. If he didn't fight a war here, he'd find some other kind of trouble somewhere else. Or she would. It's who they were, why they were so good together, good for each other...most of the time.
He reached down to push her hair off her face. "Stuck with me all your life. What did you ever do to deserve that burden, hmmm?" he asked gently.
"Shut up," she hissed. "And don't let go."
He complied and just held her until the trembling and the tears eased. Then he picked her up in his arms and zapped them both to their bedroom, where he laid her gently on the bed and lay beside her still holding her.
She cried herself out, the slow leakage of tears from her eyes ending. His shirt was soaked and she felt drained. "Did you get what you went for?" she asked.
"And more. Chris kept things safe. He's got a good head on his shoulders. Doesn't panic."
"His father all over again," she said as she drew her head back, needing to see his face, to read the expression in his eyes. Even with the bond between them, those were still the lodestones that guided her with him, that connected her to what he was feeling and thinking moment to moment. Now the blue irises, so black they almost swallowed up his pupils, were hazed with sorrow.
He hadn't planned the attack that came out of the blue after the planning session broke up. But he'd taken advantage of it, because that was what he was supposed to do. That was his job and she knew it. Like she knew that what ever task he took on, or set his hand too would be done as well as he could possibly do it, regardless of the cost to him. He made unswerving commitments like that to people and to goals. Unswerving but not blind.
"You were right," she said, "to do it."
"Only because it worked. But it was a gift, that sudden attack. They thought they caught us flatfooted so they weren't ready for that sort of response. They will be once they get our measure."
She pressed her forehead against his chest. "I know. So now what?"
"We reconvene the planning session but this time with a dragon patrol ready to launch immediately. I need to plot an attack utilizing what I found with regard to their targeting array."
"How soon," she asked.
"We can try to carve out an hour or two for us. I won't promise we don't get interrupted again."
"I know you can't," she said. "I love that you try."
"Well, le bon dieu knows it is for me as much as it is for you."
She set her lips to the pulse point in his throat, kissing it. "What do you need me to do?"
"Trust me," he replied.
"You know I do," she said. "You know it's not that at all. I just can't imagine any longer, a life that doesn't include you...at least alive somewhere."
"I know. But trust me to remember that, and know," he added touching her head, "here, that I will not forget that you will hunt me down and dismember my spirit if I get my body killed."
"I'm more likely these days to burn your body on a pyre, with me committing suttee on top of you," she said.
He looked alarmed. "Not your style at all to just accept what the universe throws at you. Now I am worried about you."
"It's easier to make you pay if I'm dead," she said. "Ghost to ghost. Unless you want to go the route Lang took so he could have sex with Azria."
"I doubt there are two of me, and if so, surely the other one would lustily object to being taken over. I know I would."
"Then it's suttee, I'm afraid," she said. "So just keep that in mind, me dying a horrible death."
"I will," he promised softly. "Now are we gonna make love or talk?"
"What do you think?" she asked, zapping them both naked.
"Ah, then you are all right," Marc chuckled, wrapping her in his arms.
"Quit bitching," Christopher said in his head. "You had your chance to stay home all comfy cozy."
"You won't have to face Dinah later. She won't mind us doing this, only that she didn't get a chance to play too."
Marc listened, his connection to the metaconert always there to feed them data on the war that raged around them.
His biggest surprise had been the Cephi ships who'd come to fight with them, Aaru and Ther'lin willing to risk themselves for this battle, only two of many.
"You must be delusional from all the dust under there. Dinah will string me up if you get so much as a scratch. She's got a thing for you I think," Christopher retorted, remarkably cheerful under the circumstances. "Why don't you just pull out your death ray laser gun and blast 'em all to smithereens. Break everything and it follows you've broken the one we need broken," Christopher explained.
"Bloody youngsters. No understanding of the beauty inherent in subtlety and cunning. Granted, hitting things hard and often works in some instances but in this one I'd like what we do, and that we've been here, to remain, shall we say, unexposed."
"Well there is that," Christopher conceded. "But I just sent this guy away for the third time. He really wants to come in here." He concentrated for a moment then turned back to Marc. "He's got a mind like a toilet, too," he said in disgust. "Now, to get back to the point, there's ten thousand dragons on the surface, or it seems like it anyway. Get them to blow the shields. Or are we keeping the fact of them a secret for the main event?"
"I'm sure they know we have dragons here. But the less they know about them, and how many, and that they are good at fighting the better I like it. Besides, we should be able to handle this ourselves, don't you think?" Marc reached into the guts of the system and finessed a wire off one lead. "There maybe that will do it."
"So go ahead and test it," Christopher said. "We still have time to get back before Dinah knows we're gone."
"Okay, here goes..." Marc flipped a switch. Lights pulsed, and a sound something like a food processor started up. "God, I'm brilliant," Marc said chortling with glee.
"Then let's get the hell out of here," Christopher said. "Unless you want to poke around some more, really get the adrenalin firing."
"Hush, or I'll tell everyone to call you Chris," Marc said as he zapped the two of them away from the ship they'd managed to board and onto Cola who'd been waiting for them in a pocket of interdimensional peace.
"Now what could Dinah possibly get mad about with me for that. Not a scratch on me," Marc said to the air.
"That you didn't tell her, that she didn't get to go, that you didn't tell her...oh wait I already said that one," Christopher quipped. "I mean we agreed to table the idea for a day or two until we were surer of our plans and then five minutes later you've got me cornered in the cloak room, telling me to get my dagger."
Marc was still grinning when Cola materialized them just above the dragon lair on Earth. He was picturing the meeting, where he'd agreed to hold off on infiltrating the Star Lord fleet until they had all the players in place to create a diversion. Oh well, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
He lost his grin when he saw Dinah standing not far away tapping her foot and looking pissed.
"I got this message," she said, "telling me you'd run out for a quart of milk and would be back soon. And here it is hours later and you don't even have the milk!"
"But I have something so much better!" Marc replied, tapping the side of his head. "a core dump of how their targetting array works. And Chris was invaluable except he forgot the milk."
"I forgot the milk?" Christopher gasped, indignant at the slander. "I didn't even know about it. But if it's so important," he said, holding out a hand that suddenly had a quart of milk in it, "here you are."
Dinah fixed him with a glare. "Jack ass."
"Feel honored, Chris. She reserves that invective for the best of us," Marc offered with a smirk.
"Then she slugs them," Laz pointed out from the sidelines. "So I'd step back if I were you."
Dinah ground her teeth, audibly. "You went off after we decided to wait," she said, deciding that her grievance was with Marc and the others were merely gnats he was encouraging to distract her.
"I did. Easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. A major tenet of my philosophy." Marc eyed her warily as he said it, scanning her for weaponry.
Dinah looked him up and then down, checking for damage. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.
"What did I say?" Marc asked the ether. Ingev snorted.
"She's really pissed," Laz observed, patting him on the shoulder as he headed out to confer with the dragons, who were still arriving in what seemed like droves. "When you finally get there, the make up sex should be great." He paused at the door. "When you finally get there."
"I'll never understand women," Marc groused.
"Logical, loving, and..." Anja was saying to explain it to Marc.
"Laconic?" Reno suggested.
"Hit him," Marc muttered as he hurried after Dinah.
She'd walked out, heading for the forest, looking for some place private where she could get control of herself, control of the devastating relief that had flooded her when he got back safe, driving out the paralyzing terror when she realized what he'd done, where he'd gone. She'd walked out because if she hadn't she'd have been on her knees in tears in front of them all. Her face was drenched with them before she'd gone ten feet. She made it into the trees at the edge of the village, out of sight when her knees gave out and the nausea took over and she found herself retching, leaning against a tree, while she sobbed.
"I'm sorry," he said from behind her, sounding as if it were killing him to watch her. Through their bond he knew, felt, tasted her fear and her relief.
She gulped, dragging in air and without a word turned, flinging herself against him, her hands convulsing in the fabric covering his back, soaking his front with tears.
"Should I not fight this war? Leave it to the others? We could just... I don't know... leave."
She shook her head violently, an emphatic no. She already knew this was the price she paid for loving him. He'd never change and neither would she. If he didn't fight a war here, he'd find some other kind of trouble somewhere else. Or she would. It's who they were, why they were so good together, good for each other...most of the time.
He reached down to push her hair off her face. "Stuck with me all your life. What did you ever do to deserve that burden, hmmm?" he asked gently.
"Shut up," she hissed. "And don't let go."
He complied and just held her until the trembling and the tears eased. Then he picked her up in his arms and zapped them both to their bedroom, where he laid her gently on the bed and lay beside her still holding her.
She cried herself out, the slow leakage of tears from her eyes ending. His shirt was soaked and she felt drained. "Did you get what you went for?" she asked.
"And more. Chris kept things safe. He's got a good head on his shoulders. Doesn't panic."
"His father all over again," she said as she drew her head back, needing to see his face, to read the expression in his eyes. Even with the bond between them, those were still the lodestones that guided her with him, that connected her to what he was feeling and thinking moment to moment. Now the blue irises, so black they almost swallowed up his pupils, were hazed with sorrow.
He hadn't planned the attack that came out of the blue after the planning session broke up. But he'd taken advantage of it, because that was what he was supposed to do. That was his job and she knew it. Like she knew that what ever task he took on, or set his hand too would be done as well as he could possibly do it, regardless of the cost to him. He made unswerving commitments like that to people and to goals. Unswerving but not blind.
"You were right," she said, "to do it."
"Only because it worked. But it was a gift, that sudden attack. They thought they caught us flatfooted so they weren't ready for that sort of response. They will be once they get our measure."
She pressed her forehead against his chest. "I know. So now what?"
"We reconvene the planning session but this time with a dragon patrol ready to launch immediately. I need to plot an attack utilizing what I found with regard to their targeting array."
"How soon," she asked.
"We can try to carve out an hour or two for us. I won't promise we don't get interrupted again."
"I know you can't," she said. "I love that you try."
"Well, le bon dieu knows it is for me as much as it is for you."
She set her lips to the pulse point in his throat, kissing it. "What do you need me to do?"
"Trust me," he replied.
"You know I do," she said. "You know it's not that at all. I just can't imagine any longer, a life that doesn't include you...at least alive somewhere."
"I know. But trust me to remember that, and know," he added touching her head, "here, that I will not forget that you will hunt me down and dismember my spirit if I get my body killed."
"I'm more likely these days to burn your body on a pyre, with me committing suttee on top of you," she said.
He looked alarmed. "Not your style at all to just accept what the universe throws at you. Now I am worried about you."
"It's easier to make you pay if I'm dead," she said. "Ghost to ghost. Unless you want to go the route Lang took so he could have sex with Azria."
"I doubt there are two of me, and if so, surely the other one would lustily object to being taken over. I know I would."
"Then it's suttee, I'm afraid," she said. "So just keep that in mind, me dying a horrible death."
"I will," he promised softly. "Now are we gonna make love or talk?"
"What do you think?" she asked, zapping them both naked.
"Ah, then you are all right," Marc chuckled, wrapping her in his arms.
