Phantom of the Wind (2 page)

“We’re here for you, Doc,” he said. “For anything you need.”

“A new heart?” she asked softly. “The old one is in pieces.”

The two men watched her walk out of the lounge and Breen cursed eloquently in his native Cengusian then shot Karl an angry look. “Why the hell did that bastard have to come back into her life?”

“The luck of the Domhan,” Karl quipped. “Some of us are doomed to having the stuffing knocked out of us on occasion. Kendall was born under a bad sign, apparently.”

“What kind of sign?” Breen snapped. “One that says walk all over me?” He hung his head. “I’m sorry. Quinn and I go a long way back, but he just about destroyed her and I’ll never be able to forgive him for that.”

Every crewmember on the
Sláinte
knew how the captain felt about their medical officer—everyone that was except Kendall.

“You think they’ll execute him?”

A muscle clenched in Breen’s cheek. “I think that’s the only way she’ll ever get that son of a whoring bitch out of her life once and for all!”

“Aye, but will it take him out of her heart?” Karl countered.

Breen rattled off another prime Cengusian curse word then spun around and stormed off, his shoulders hunched. “Will it take him out of her heart?” the captain snarled as he whipped around the corner and out of sight.

“I don’t think so,” Karl answered his own question then sat there looking out the sweep of windows at the blackness of space.

Kendall informed her med techs they would be receiving a patient who might be severely injured. She made sure everything was ready, checked a second time then straightened her tunic and made her way to the transport pad, taking two stretcher bearers and a stretcher along with her. The captain was already there and after one look around her, she knew the crewmen knew who was headed their way.

“You need us to do anything, Doc?” Breen inquired gently.

All too familiar with the smug attitudes of the crews who manned the five penal transports, Kendall looked over at the captain. “Just don’t let them give us any of their crap, Sir,” she asked.

“Duly noted,” Breen agreed.

Glancing up at the Vid-Screen, Kendall tensed as the image of the
Borstal
sped into view. Like its sister ships—the
Barracoon,
the
Vortex,
the
Serenian Star
and the
Revenge—
the matte black prison ship was an eerie sight with its long, sweeping wings that gave it the appearance of a bird of prey in flight.

Before the
Borstal
came to a halt facing the
Sláinte
, the image on the Vid-Screen shifted to the face of its captain. “Are you ready to receive the prisoner, Captain Breen?”

Breen nodded. “Aye, Captain Jaborn, we are.”

The Dahrenian gave a curt nod then the Vid-Screen image returned to a shot of the
Borstal
.

“Friendly kind of guy, ain’t he?” Karl remarked as he joined them.

“Oh Sayed’s a pretty okay guy most of the time. He just hasn’t gotten over being born ninth out of nine sons to the Dahrenian king therefore being required to make his own way in the megaverse. I’ve heard he thinks being assigned to a penal transport is beneath him,” Breen said.

“Four coming in,” the tech manning the transporter pad announced. “Two cybots, two humanoids.”

Karl moved a bit closer to Kendall as did Breen. The crewmen of the
Sláinte
were very protective of their medical officer, especially so since she was the only female onboard the all-male ship.

Kendall could feel the blood pounding in her ears. Her palms were sweating and all she wanted to do was go over to the corner, face the wall and curl up into a ball. As the four forms began materializing on the transporter pad, she was terrified of what she might see. She put a hand to her chest.

“Breathe, Kenni,” Karl whispered to her. “Just breathe.”

Steeling herself, Kendall straightened her shoulders and carefully schooled her face not to show the emotions roiling inside her. She lifted her chin, dropped her hands to her side.

The two cybots were massive Class 10 titanium constructs. Their wide shoulders were boxy, their upper bodies and legs segmented with hydraulic sleeves. Their heads were very small in comparison to their torsos with two bright red gleaming lights for eyes, and their legs were wedge-shaped, built for speed and endurance. At an impressive seven feet in height from the huge, flat rectangles upon which they stood to the communications array housed in the clear dome of their heads, the ‘bots were nightmarish creatures no one would want to see lumbering after them.

Hanging between the ‘bots was a man, his upper arms in the massive grips of the artificial intelligence units. Apparently unconscious, his head was sagging to his chest, his feet dragging on the floor. Drops of blood splattered to the floor of the transporter pad.

Materializing last was a very tall, muscular woman—her height nearly that of the cybots—and in her right hand was clutched a
Dóigra
, a wooden pike-like instrument with a star-shaped glass bulb at the top. She wore the formfitting gray uniform of a Riezell Guardian and had hair as white as snow that fell in waves to below her shapely hips.

“Amazeen,” Karl whispered needlessly, for everyone in the transport room knew the race of the woman.

“Who is the healer in charge here?” the woman demanded, her fingers flexing around the rod of the
Dóigra
.

Kendall stepped forward. “I am,” she said, trying not to let her eyes drift to the woman’s prisoner. “This man needs to be on a stretcher.”

“And you are who to tell me this?” the Amazeen sneered.

“Doctor Kendall Bryne.”

The Amazeen’s mouth twisted and her piercing gray eyes, the same shade as the uniform she wore, narrowed dangerously. “Ah yes. I know of you. You were his Domhan whore.”

“One more comment like that and I’ll have you thrown into my brig for insubordination to a superior officer,” Breen snapped. “You might get away with that crap on Jaborn’s floating barge but not here, wench!”

“Wench?” The word seemed to draw the Amazeen to even a taller height and she sent a murderous glare toward the captain. “You will afford me the honor I am due as a Riezell…”

“Riezell, friezell, I don’t give a Diabolusian warthog’s pecker what you are,” Breen growled. “You’re just a glorified cop, and from the look of those gold anchors on your collar, Dr. Bryne outranks you so you’ll keep a civil tongue in your mouth or I will have my men take you into custody.” Before the Amazeen could protest his comment, he turned to one of the transport personnel and ordered him to open a channel to the
Borstal
’s captain.

“Aye, Sir!” the engineering mate agreed.

Captain Jaborn’s unsmiling face filled the Vid-Screen. “What did she do?” he asked on a long, irritated sigh.

“Take her back over to your ship or I’ll slap her ass in the brig, Sayed,” Breen stated.

“Get back over here, Shanee,” Jaborn ordered. “Now!”

“But, Captain!” the Amazeen protested.

“I said now! I warned you about going over there in the first place.” Jaborn’s angry visage disappeared from the screen.

Fury shifted across the hard features of the Amazeen and she lifted her chin. “The ‘bots remain with the prisoner,” she warned, “and if anyone attempts to allow him to escape, they have orders to incinerate Rory Quinn!”

In a flash of multicolored molecules the Amazeen disappeared, leaving behind the ominous threat of her words.

“Captain, he needs to be lying down,” Kendall said, shifting her attention entirely to Quinn. “There’s no telling how much damage has already been done by him being manhandled like that.”

“Hail him again,” Breen directed.

“What now, Liam?” Jaborn grumbled, but looked resigned this time.

“She left these two hulking machines over here. We need to get the prisoner on a stretcher and not have him dangling by his arms.”

“Primä One, take the prisoner carefully into your arms and place him upon the stretcher,” Jaborn commanded. “Primä Two, stand down.”

The red lights on the titanium skull of the cybot darkened to a deep crimson color then the massive machine swung one leg to the side and bent its segmented lower body so it could scoop the unconscious man into its hydraulic arms. The other machine let go of the prisoner’s arm only when he was in the hold of Primä One.

With heavy thuds punctuating each step, the cybot came toward the stretcher bearers who looked as though they were about to piss their uniform pants. Gently placing the prisoner on the stretcher, the ‘bot straightened up and swung its carmine scrutiny to Kendall where it held with malevolence.

“The ‘bots have been programmed to kill, Liam,” Jaborn warned. “I bid you be very careful around them. They are Tappas Industry constructs and belong to the Guardians. I have very little control over them.”

Kendall wasn’t listening to the conversation between the two captains. She was staring down into the dearly loved—but severely battered—face of a man she had never thought to see again. She had to dig her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep from screaming at the sight that nearly threatened to drop her in her tracks.

A dark bruise covered his left cheek. Around his swollen eyes were streaks of red and dark brown discolorations, a crescent-shaped cut just to the left side of his nose ran down to his upper lip. There was another cut on the right side of his mouth and his lower lip was split. A deep gash slanted across his forehead still oozed blood. There was no doubt in her mind that his jaw was broken and if that were the case, she knew there would be broken ribs as well.

Forcing her attention from his face, she looked down at his hands and flinched. Every one of his fingers were swollen and misshapen, most likely broken. The nails on several fingers were hanging by a thin sliver of tissue and would need to be completely removed, hopefully reset on the nail bed to use them as splints for the growth of new nails. Abrasions and cuts on his knuckles gave evidence that he’d fought back against his captors during or prior to his arrest.

“This man has been tortured,” she said through clenched teeth. She snapped her head up and directed her anger to the captain of the
Borstal
. “This man has been tortured!”

Jaborn cleared his throat. “Aye, Healer, he has,” he admitted, and had the grace to blush. “But I assure you that was done before he was brought aboard my ship. I contacted Captain Breen as soon as I saw his condition.”

“How benevolent of you,” Kendall grated.

“Who did this, Captain?” Breen asked the other man, reaching out to lay a calming hand on Kendall’s shoulder.

“The Amazeen and her ‘bots,” Jaborn replied. “She says she was interrogating him, trying to find the whereabouts of his crew and their homeport.”

“He would have died before revealing that,” Kendall said, shrugging off Breen’s hand. She turned to her stretcher bearers. “Get him to sick bay, stat!”

The two men carrying Quinn’s stretcher started into the corridor. As one, the two giant cybots turned, their thudding step falling in behind the orderlies.

“I’ll not have that conglomeration of nuts and bolts hindering my care of the patient,” Kendall said.

“They will only watch, Healer,” Jaborn said, “and not interfere unless someone tries to liberate Quinn. Should that happen, they will be forced to act.”

Using a few curse words of her own, Kendall stormed out into the corridor, unable to make it to the elevator before the cage doors closed behind her men. The last sight she had of them was of two very frightened orderlies flanked by the titanium monstrosities. Having to wait until the elevator returned irritated Kendall but it gave her time to get her emotions under control.

As she stood there her entire body was quivering with outrage. She had known how the Coalition would treat Quinn once he was captured but seeing him bruised and beaten to a bloody pulp made her want to pick up a laser rifle and go on a rampage of her own.

The elevator came back to her level and the pneumatic doors shushed open. Kendall took the cage and with her jaw clenched gave the deck number of the sick bay. Though she was severely claustrophobic and elevators brought perspiration to her underarms, for the first time in her life she paid no attention to her phobia. Her mind was seething too savagely with what had been done to Rory Quinn.

Kendall had trained her med techs well and already they were in the process of transferring Quinn to the sled that would glide the patient into the TAOS mapping module. Once inside the Tissue Artery Organ Skeletal diagnostic and restoration unit, his injuries would be assessed then repaired.

“We didn’t remove his clothing but I ran a scan,” Med Tech 3 Parks informed her. “There’s no metal on his prison garb to interfere with the mapping.”

“By Alel, this guy is a mess,” Med Tech 4 Andrews commented as he gently secured a plastic web arm restraint around Quinn’s wrist.

“Amazeen,” Kendall spat out as though the word was a bitter liquid in her mouth.

“Aye, so I heard,” Andrews replied. “They’re vicious bitches to begin with and some fool made her a Riezell Guardian?” He shook his head as he moved down the sled and carefully secured his patient’s legs.