Daughters of Lyra: Heart of a Commander (11 page)

Van dropped back again as
they entered the building and even though she couldn’t see where he
was looking because of his visor, she could feel that his eyes were
on her.

He explained, seemingly to
her alone, his attention always with her, about the rooms they were
passing through. This complex had been the stronghold of Varka on
this planet many years ago. They hadn’t used it since Lyra had
withdrawn and it had returned to Varkan hands. There was a corridor
and steps leading downwards that Van went straight past without
explaining. She knew why. There was only one place that he wouldn’t
want to take her or her comrades. The cells. She could read his
silence as clearly as her captain and first officer would be able
to. They had held many Lyrans in this complex once and even though
Varka Two had returned to Varka over fifty years ago, there were
still those that would have had kin held in those cells.

If they had ever caught
her uncle, they would have held him here and tortured him for
information. While that thought disturbed her, it didn’t change her
feelings towards the Varkans. That time was long over and peace had
long reigned between their species. Lyrans had captured Varkans too
and tortured them. She took a deep breath and told herself that was
the face of war.

It was a face that she
hoped to never see.

They came out into a long
wide room. The lights above were dim but it was bright enough for
her to see that Heavy Armour suits lined the walls. She had never
seen one in real life but had read all about them. She walked over
to the nearest suit and ran her hands over the bulky black frame,
shaped reminiscent of muscles, and down the arms. The sleek black
helmet stared lifelessly down at her. It was incredible. If a
soldier were to wear this, they would be well protected but
completely unhindered by the suit. In fact, judging by the complex
array of pistons and fluid tubes, the soldier would be able to move
faster and with more strength than they normally had. The metal was
cool under her fingers. Varkan steel. There was nothing stronger in
the galaxy. Van would look incredible in it.

Her exploration halted
when she remembered that a Heavy Armour had taken her uncle Remi’s
arm and years later a Heavy Armour had almost killed him and his
friend, Jericho, during the insurgence.

“
Is something
the matter?” Van said close to her elbow and Amerii shook her head.
He touched her cheek, the caress soothing but unsettling at the
same time. She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind but
couldn’t. “Terrible things happen in wars, Amerii. Varka and Lyra
have moved into an era of peace. No longer will these weapons hurt
those of our kin.”

Her brow furrowed and she
leaned into his touch, trying to find the comfort in it and his
words.

“
It’s just...
were you here?”

She wished she could see
his eyes as she looked up at him. She wanted to be able to read his
feelings in them. She needed to see if he was being honest with
her.

“
For the
eighty-seventh and the one-hundred-and-twelfth combats... the ones
in which your uncle was involved?”

She didn’t know if that
was what the Varkans had called them but nodded.

“
No. I was on
Varka Prime with Regis. I have been here once in my lifetime and
that was to eradicate the Wraiths.”

The knowledge that he
hadn’t been here slaughtering Lyrans didn’t comfort her as much as
she had thought it would. Her eyes darted about his visor, trying
to see through it to his eyes.

“
Van?” she said
in a small trembling voice.

“
Amerii... I
have never fought a Lyran. Neither has Regis. It does not mean that
we were not involved though. Just as you have never fought a
Varkan, you have been involved by blood in those
fights.”

Amerii frowned. He was
right. How could she feel such negativity towards Van and the
Varkans because of what had happened to Lyrans when it had been
Lyrans who had instigated the war and had attempted to take Varka
Two from its rightful owners? She had absolutely no right to feel
this way.

“
I’m sorry,”
Amerii said and closed her eyes when he stroked her cheek, his
touch light and warm. “It’s a little overwhelming.”

“
I would rather
you had remained on the ship,” he said on a sigh and she looked up
at him again. “I do not like you being down here. I do not trust
your captain’s ability to protect you.”

She smiled at Van. Out of
the corner of her eye, she could see her captain and the first
officer staring at them. She stepped back, remembering her place
and not wanting to be reprimanded. Her behaviour was far from how
it should be. She was here as a lieutenant of the Lyran Imperial
Army, not a love-struck woman with her man.

“
You seemed
very interested in the Heavy Armour,” Van said, his voice a bare
whisper.

A blush crept onto her
cheeks and she turned her back on her captain so he didn’t see. Van
moved closer to her, coming to stand slightly behind her, half of
his body against hers. Her blush deepened. He leaned down and
whispered into her ear.

“
Would you like
to see me in one?”

His rifle pressed against
her back as he leaned in and stroked her neck with his free hand.
Her eyes half-closed, fixed on the Heavy Armour as her mind raced
to imagine him in it. He really would look incredible.

Her captain cleared his
throat.

“
Will all of
the Heavy Armour suits be removed?”

Van stepped away from her
and she gathered herself while he walked along the row of
suits.

“
We will leave
them here. The weaponry they carry has been modified since the war.
It was altered to be effective against Wraiths.”

Amerii looked at the
armour that she was still standing in front of. It held a large
assault rifle. She had thought it was just a regular laser rifle.
It looked no different to the one Van held, only a lot
larger.

She realised that the one
she held was just a smaller version of his rifle. They were all
anti-Wraith weapons.

“
We will
continue our tour this way,” Van said and walked ahead of them. She
looked at the armour for a few seconds more, curious as to how it
would feel to wear one, and then followed the group.

At the other end of the
room, bright light filtered in through open doors. Van paused and
looked back at her.

“
The garden
here is beautiful and I am certain that it could be altered to grow
food for the soldiers.”

She came to a halt just
behind her captain and peered through the bright open space, trying
to make out the garden beyond.

Something
moved.

Her fingers tensed against
her gun, but when she didn’t see anything move again, she decided
that it was probably just the light and her focusing too hard on
trying to see what was out there.

“
When we have
briefly toured the garden, we will—” Van went rigid and then
turned, his gun coming up fast.

Before Amerii could even
shout his name, three incredibly tall white figures had appeared
and disappeared.

Van was gone.

****

Chapter
8

Amerii ran to the end of
the room and out into the garden. She couldn’t see Van or the white
figures anywhere. She turned on the spot, her breathing fast as her
heart thundered against her chest. They had taken him.

Wraiths.

A Varkan commander would
be valuable to them but there was no knowing what they would do to
him.

She had to get him
back.

She ran back into the
room, passing her captain and the first officer, and looked around
her.

“
Lieutenant
Amerii, what are you doing?” her captain said.

Her eyes fixed on the
Heavy Armour suits.

“
We must go
after them,” Amerii said, out of breath as her body trembled with
the adrenaline.

“
How?”

She didn’t know. Her hands
shook against her gun and she cursed the tears that threatened to
fill her eyes. She was a princess of Lyra. This wasn’t time to be
weak. It was time to be strong and prove to herself and her captain
that she was capable of great things.

Two Varkan officers came
rushing in, their speed incredible as they ran towards her. They
halted barely three feet from her and lifted their visors. It was
the two who had accompanied her on the shuttle from her vessel to
the Varkan ship.

They glared at the far end
of the room.

“
Wraiths have
Commander Aeris. We must get him back,” she said and they nodded.
She looked at the Heavy Armour and ran over to one of the suits.
“These work, yes?”

They nodded
again.

“
Good,” she
said and began opening it, prising the two sides of the heavily
armoured chest apart.

“
Lieutenant
Amerii, what do you think you are doing?” her captain said, his
voice stern. “This is a Varkan matter.”

She turned on him. “It
happened in our base station. It is as much a Lyran matter. Unless
you want to be the one to tell Emperor Varka that his attendant has
gone missing and we did nothing to rescue him?”

He paled.
“Attendant?”

She nodded and frowned.
“Not only an attendant but a close friend of Regis’s... and my...”
She pulled the collar of her armoured suit down to reveal the marks
on her throat. The two Varkans bowed their heads. Her captain’s
eyes shot wide. “My mate. As a subject of Lyra, you will follow my
orders and step aside.”

Before he could respond,
she clambered into the Heavy Armour. It closed around her, sealing
her in. The helmet covered her head. She slid her arms into the
suit’s and flexed her hands, seeing the robotic suit’s hands move
in perfect synch with hers.

“
Can you even
work that thing?” the first officer said.

“
If you’d paid
the remotest bit of attention to me you would know that I’m as
skilled with technology as my mother and as headstrong in battles
as my father.” She scowled at him and then moved her foot forward.
The Heavy Armour’s foot landed with a loud thud on the floor, the
whining sound of the parts moving like music to her
ears.

The two Varkans suited up
and she nodded in thanks to them for their assistance. They would
know this planet better than she did and could probably give her a
few pointers about the suit. She was good with technology but
reading Varkan was beyond her. Not that she was about to admit that
within earshot of her captain.

Amerii stomped past her
captain and first officer, building to a steady run that sounded
like thunder. The suit responded beautifully to every move. She
didn’t even have to exert much effort to make it run faster than
she ever could.

The two Varkan officers
passed her and she spotted a hole in the barrier ahead. She
squeezed through it after them and followed their lead as they
flanked her.

“
Where would
they have taken him?” she said over the intercom.

“
North Sector
has always had high Wraith activity. The shield from here to there
and over that sector is low since the area hasn’t been used in
almost a century,” came the reply and the one to her right
nodded.

She took a deep breath,
shouldered her rifle and ran as fast as she could towards the area
now flashing on the map in the bottom right corner of the red
screen in front of her. The landscape took up the rest of the
screen. Overlaid onto it were diagnostics of the terrain and
atmospheric readings.

Dust rose around her as
she ran, her focus fixed on the distance, on the buildings that
shimmered in the heat haze.

She had to get to
Van.

She had to save the man
she loved.

***

The ground slammed into
Van’s face, smashing his black visor. Or did he slam into the
ground? Everything that had happened over the past few minutes had
been a blur, a whirlwind of colours and sounds that had
disorientated him.

“
Commander
Aeris,” a thin voice echoed in his head.

Van blinked his eyes open
and tried to focus. Bright light burnt his eyes. The sun. He could
feel it on his face, strong and searing. He squinted up at it. It
filtered in through a hole in a ceiling and wall. Where was he? His
eyes watered as he tried to assess his surroundings. The building
was old, dilapidated. The North Sector?

“
It has been a
long time since our paths have crossed,” the voice continued in his
head.

Cruskin.

“
A Lyran
curse... they truly have tamed the mighty Varkans with their
female.”

His thoughts shifted to
Amerii. Would she be safe back at the complex? Did the Wraiths have
her too?

“
Another Lyran
female? This one the victor over your own heart?”

Van cursed in Varkan this
time, in the old language that Wraiths had never been able to
understand. He despised them and their way of being able to invade
minds. No thought was safe, not unless he constantly thought in the
old language and that wasn’t possible. Instinct made him think in
the Varkan language that he had been raised with.