No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three (19 page)

Mykah slid a surreptitious look at Eilif. What would it be like, he wondered, to know someone you considered your son was a savage murderer? To watch him die, condemned by your husband—whose crimes were even more monstrous and extensive? Eilif was so guarded that the depth of her pain might never be known.

“All right,” Ariel said. “Kai allows one visitor per prisoner per day to their jail.”

“I’ll go back,” Haoun said. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“You’ve seen her already?”

“I went this afternoon. She looked better than I expected. The sun comes in her cell, so it’s warm in there, but they’re feeding her well. She’s sleeping and able to exercise. She’s still wearing the dress she had on when she was arrested, though. And she’s barefoot. They confiscated her boots on Lautan and she hasn’t gotten anything to replace them.”

“I don’t think Kai has jail uniforms,” Ariel said. “I’ll get her some clothing, so you can deliver it tomorrow morning. Where are you staying?”

“There’s a boarding house near the delivery docks,” Mykah said. He pulled the coordinates up on his handheld and sent them to Ariel’s comm bracelet. “Haoun and I have stayed there before.”

“Is it rough?” Ariel asked.

Mykah met her eyes. “Not if we’re together.”

She nodded, understanding what exactly he meant by that: humans were tolerated in mixed company. “I would be glad to put you up someplace more centrally located,” Ariel said.

“Let us talk it over,” Mykah said. “We’re okay where we are, but if the trial drags on . . .”

“I’ll do what I can to get things expedited,” Ariel promised, “but not until Corvas gets here.”

*   *   *

The advantage of being confined alone was that she had her own shower. Kai rationed water, so Raena couldn’t stand in it all day long, but she treated herself to killing time under the water as often as she could.

Today the shower cut off before she was done luxuriating in it. “You have a visitor coming up,” a guard said over the comm.

Raena rubbed her head dry and wrapped the towel around her body. The blue dress she’d been wearing when she was arrested on Lautan was getting threadbare from being worn so often, but she shouldered into it anyway.

When Haoun strode across her threshold, Raena melted gratefully into his arms. “How long can you stay?”

“I’m just making a delivery,” he said. “They’re going to call you for your trial today, but Ariel wanted you to have something decent to wear.”

He handed her a clear plastic shopping bag. It held a shimmering metallic blue dress. Raena tugged off her old dress to slip into the new one. Haoun stood back out of her way, but watched her avidly.

The dress wrapped around her in such a way that it implied more curves than Raena actually possessed. The loose skirt fell past her knees. She spun around to make it swirl. Ariel always did have nice taste in clothes.

“No boots?” Raena asked.

“Apparently, boots are proscribed. Or maybe only for you, I’m not clear. It feels like they change the rules whenever they choose to.” He handed her a pair of soft black slippers.

Can’t kill anyone with these, Raena thought, but didn’t say anything aloud. She looked up to see Haoun was probably thinking the same thing. He laughed at her.

“Brush your hair?” he asked. “Or is it meant to look like that?”

“Don’t you like it?” she teased, petting it upward.

“I like it, but you’re not dressing for me.”

“Pity.”

*   *   *

After she’d groomed herself, Raena came to sit in his lap. Haoun petted her back gently, careful not to snag his claws in the fabric of her new dress. “Nervous?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said, but he felt the flutter of her heart beneath her thin, soft skin. He wished he could do something to make the waiting easier.

“Have you ever been in jail?” Raena asked.

Haoun was surprised they hadn’t had this conversation before. “Never.”

“Never been caught?” she teased.

“You know how cautious I am.” Caution had cost him his mate and children, but he hadn’t really thought caution was a bad thing. He’d always been cautious, up until he asked Raena if she’d play the jet scooter game with him on Lautan.

She rested her head against his chest. “Regretting anything?”

“Only that I should’ve taken up with you sooner.”

“My bunk’s too small,” she pointed out.

“Vezali could fix it.” After the words left his translator, he wished he could call them back. What if she didn’t want to be with him on the
Veracity
? What if this didn’t mean anything to her, if she was only glad of his company because she’d been trapped in solitary confinement and she was lonely, bored, and frightened?

“I’d rather come sleep in your nest,” she said. “Much more comfortable.”

“Really?” he asked hopefully.

Raena said decisively, “Really.”

He wove his long fingers between her short ones. “No regrets,” he promised.

Their moment was ruined by a voice announcing over the comm, “Prisoner Zacari, the court is preparing for you now.”

Raena stood up and shimmied the dress down into place. “Do I look scary?”

“You look nice,” Haoun said. “Good luck today.”

“Thank you. Will you be there?”

“Coni is saving me a seat in the courtroom.”

“I haven’t met my defender yet,” she said abruptly.

“Ariel said he is on Kai,” Haoun soothed. “He’ll be there for you today.”

“What if he is attacked by those soldiers in gray? What if someone prevents him from getting to me on time? What if—”

He cut her off. “You aren’t alone. Ariel is here. If the defender gets held up, we will think of something. We are all in this.”

Raena’s breathing grew choppy. Haoun thought back over the time he’d known her. Before she went alone down to the Thallian homeworld to wipe them out, before she’d gone to Capital City to protect Mellix, before she led the assault on the Outrider androids: before any of the attacks, she had been calm, relaxed, in her element. Only when she’d fled the New Bar after seeing herself in Mellix’s documentary had she seemed anxious. This was even worse.

“This will be over soon,” he promised. “Then I owe you a bubble bath.”

A voice said over the comm, “Prisoner Zacari, stand away from the door.”

Raena snatched up Haoun’s wrist and pulled him with her to the opposite side of the cell. She turned around to face the wall and put her hands up on it at shoulder height.

“Do I need to turn around, too?” he asked, as nervous as she had been.

“No, you’re fine.” She seemed calmer suddenly. “Just keep your hands where they can see them, step out of their way politely, and don’t make any twitchy moves.”

Four guards came into the cell. Three carried stun staves. One of them moved to cover Haoun as another advanced on Raena with an old-fashioned set of shackles. She submitted docilely as he bound her wrists and ankles, then attached the leads that prevented her from taking a long step or raising her hands above her waist—or would have done, if she hadn’t been so tiny.

Raena kept her face blank, as if she hadn’t noticed she was barely hobbled. Where nerves had made her fluttery before, now she looked very, very still.

It made Haoun think of a yaska, a fuzzy little prey animal from his home world that froze when it became aware you were hunting it. It let you think it was frightened, before it leapt up to bite at your eyes. They could burrow into your brain and kill you in the space of a breath.

The guards formed up around her and marched her out the door. Haoun followed, but one directed him back to the visitors’ elevator. He hoped Raena wouldn’t kill the guards on the way to the courtroom.

*   *   *

Once Haoun had lumbered out of earshot, one of the guards—a twiggy tree creature—asked, “Who’s that?”

“My boyfriend.”

The guards burst into laughter. Raena just smiled to herself.

“I think she’s serious,” the canine guard pointed out. He reminded her of Skyler, who had traveled on the
Panacea
with Kavanaugh, when they were young.

“That’s just sick,” the frog-faced guard said. “You humans will throw yourselves on anything, won’t you?”

Raena didn’t bother to point out that she hadn’t made the first move. She also didn’t point out that the galaxy had done a pretty thorough job of spreading humans thin across space. No matter what she said, people like these would find a way to be disgusted.

She just hoped that whatever magic Ariel was preparing, they could all get out of here soon.

CHAPTER 9

T
he jailers escorted Raena back down to the holding cell at the courthouse. She sat on the same rickety chair and again had to concentrate on not overloading the forcefield by accident.

She worried whether her defender would arrive in time, or if someone would contrive an accident for him. If he wasn’t able to defend her, would the Deputy Consul step up again? Or Ariel? Her sister didn’t have any official legal training that Raena knew of, but Ariel learned her way around a binding contract at an early age.

A bipedal lizard dressed in a flamboyant yellow and orange robe scurried over to her. He was slim and chisel-faced, with eyes that moved independently as if on turrets. He wore a translator on his chest like a flashy medallion. “I am Tomur Corvas. Ariel Shaad hired me to defend you in this matter. It’s my pleasure to meet you, Ms. Zacari, although I wish it had been under better circumstances.”

His voice sounded like a series of hisses and sighs, but the translator changed it to a musical tenor.

“Thank you for taking my case.”

He waved that away with hands that had no fingers, only two opposable sides so that he could grasp things. “This area is not recorded for broadcast, but it is probably monitored, nonetheless. Let’s proceed as if everything we say here is on the record.”

“Understood,” Raena said.

“Ms. Shaad filled me in on your case. I have spoken to most of your crewmates from the
Veracity
. The information they’ve given me will form the basis of your defense. You are not required to address the court yourself, but you are welcome to, if you like. Also, we should talk about whether your trial will be allowed to be broadcast.”

“I prefer not to make a galactic spectacle of my life.”

“You are already a celebrity after the Messiah documentary.”

“It was not my wish to appear in that.”

He nodded, but said smoothly, “Captain Chen points out that the case before us references business practices that may have wide-ranging implications. He encourages you to reconsider.”

That sounded like something Mykah would say. Raena asked, “What does Ariel suggest?”

“I would prefer not to quote her, but she agrees with Captain Chen.”

That didn’t surprise Raena, either. If there was a fight to be had, Ariel would be all for having it in public. “All right,” Raena said at last. “If it’s your recommendation that I allow it to be broadcast, I will.”

Afterward, she would reconsider her stance against having her appearance permanently altered.

Corvas pulled a handheld from his satchel and made a swipe across it, sending a message he had already loaded. “Yes,” he said, when he looked up again, “I would definitely recommend it. You’re much more likely to get a fair hearing if Kai feels that the galaxy is watching.”

That was the first time anyone had offered a context she understood. Raena already appreciated having the lizard on her side.

“I don’t know how the judicial system on Kai works,” she admitted.

“The Business Council is the planetary government of Kai. For the most part, all serious cases are brought by the Business Council against tourists, although tourists, tour operators, and shopkeepers may sue each other as well. Broadcasting the Business Council’s trials started as an advertising ploy to demonstrate how colorful—and safe—Kai was. It has morphed into a moneymaking venture, particularly since the tesseract flaw’s impact on tourism. To generate more income, the Business Council also sells tickets to audience seats in the courtroom.”

Raena nodded for him to continue.

“Three judges will preside over your case. They will be drawn by lot to represent a variety of people. They will have to reach a consensus. Otherwise, they’ll declare a mistrial and we will have to go through this whole process again, presenting new evidence each time. The judges may be hostile to you, because that makes for better theater and draws more viewers.”

“What are the odds of getting a human judge?”

“Zero. There are no human judges on Kai.”

Raena would have been surprised if there had been. “What are the odds of having a mistrial declared and needing to go through this ordeal again?”

The lizard made a gargling sound that Raena realized was a chuckle. “Most trials on Kai do end in a mistrial the first time. Several have been dragging out for planetary years. That’s more lucrative for the players involved. However, I will do my best to see that you receive a definitive judgment the first time through.”

“Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “I’ve been on retainer for the Shaad Family Foundation for a decade. I know Ms. Shaad has no patience for wasting time.”