Pirate Nemesis (Telepathic Space Pirates Book 1) (4 page)

And immediately raised them again when the lock clicked on the door to her cell. It opened, letting in another rush of warm air and enough light that it dazzled her eyes. She blinked rapidly a few times, and it was no surprise to see Willem Frain standing in the doorway.

He smiled. She hated that cold, insufferable smile. Then he stepped aside, and two people she didn’t know moved into the cell. A man and a woman. Mercy eyed them warily. They looked as cold as Frain: expressionless, and locked down so tight she picked up nothing from them. They didn’t touch her, but she felt a vise-like grip wrap around her body, holding her arms pinned to her sides and chaining her legs so she couldn’t kick out with them. She was lifted, set on her feet between them, and walked out of her cell while she struggled futilely against the telekinetic grip.

“Struggling will only risk injury,” Frain said mildly.

“Like I’m going to listen to anything you say,” she snapped back, continuing to strain against her bonds. She thought about testing her own telekinesis, a gift she hadn’t used since she was a little girl, floating dolls through the air to make them move like she wanted.

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” said Frain. “I would also point out that I have not lied to you once.”

Did he seriously think she was going to trust him?

“Fine,” she bit out, as they began to march her inexorably down the hall. At least the temperature was more friendly out here. She could feel some of her extremities starting to lose their constant chill. “Then tell me where we’re going.”

A spark of eagerness brightened his eyes, made them almost seem warm. “It is time for us to begin.”

A
s uncomfortable as
Mercy’s cell was, it turned out things could always get worse. She was marched into a room that looked frighteningly like a medical lab. Cold, sterile, all gleaming steel surfaces and lights that shone too brightly. Her telekinetic bonds were not released until they’d maneuvered her into a chair and engaged a binding field to keep her there. The silent woman leaned forward and secured a generator to her chest, then stepped back and triggered it remotely. A gravitational field invisible to the naked eye snapped into place around her, the pressure keeping her anchored, unable to lift an arm, a leg, or sit forward.

Across from Mercy, Atrea sat in a duplicate chair, awake and straining uselessly against a duplicate field, her hair mussed even worse than before. She could see by the tightness of Atrea’s jaw, the paleness of her face and vivid gleam of her eyes that her friend was furious. But when she saw Mercy, she went still, and anger morphed into shock and concern, her eyes widening and her jaw loosening.

I must look even worse than I thought
. Which, given the shaved head and lack of recent meals, was pretty bad.

It’s okay, I’m okay
. Mercy sent her friend the reassurance automatically, reflexively, before stopping to consider that it might not be a good idea, given present company. Atrea couldn’t answer her as a telepath could, but her thoughts were loud and clear, not only to Mercy, but probably to every Talented person in the room. Which Mercy counted at six.

Okay? This is okay? What the hell have they done? Her hair! What are those discolored patches on her skin? Bastards. Fuck this. No one ever thinks of everything. They will make a mistake. We are getting out of here.

While Atrea was thinking all of this, Willem Frain was lowering a full body scanner around her chair. It cut her off from Mercy’s view, but that didn’t matter. The tone of her thoughts reassured Mercy better than anything else possibly could: her friend was as well as she could be, under the circumstances. She was still Atrea Hades, smuggler-born, military trained, and all-around badass. People underestimated her a lot because she was tiny and unassuming, with a pretty face and blue eyes she could make guileless whenever she wanted. That was their mistake.

It might be more difficult to fool these particular people, since they could read her thoughts. On the other hand, Frain seemed to believe anyone not Talented was useless. If Mercy warned her, they would hear it. But it was best to assume they already knew everything about both of them. In that case, nothing Mercy said, short of “this is the escape plan” would make a difference.

Atrea, they can hear everything you think. They’ve poked around in my head so much, they know things about me that I didn’t even remember. Assume the same is true for you.

Mercy couldn’t see her friend’s reaction, but she could hear it. It consisted of a lot of profanity. Growing up in and out of shady spaceports had given her a huge repertoire.

I hope a black hole opens up and eats them all,
was her final thought on the matter. Followed quickly by,
just not while we’re here with them.

The burst of amusement surprised Mercy. A laugh bubbled up, aborted by the rigid hold of the binding field that held her so securely. Atrea’s attitude brightened hers. A small, horribly selfish part of her was suddenly very glad her friend was here with her. Which only made her feel worse.

What the hell is this? Why are they scanning me?

Atrea’s thought, driven by uncertainty and fear, drove all of the good feelings away. It reminded Mercy of exactly why they were here.

“This isn’t going to work,” she told Frain, the words difficult to form within the field. She wanted to say them out loud, though. Both as an act of defiance, and so Atrea would hear. Hopefully Willem Frain would reply in kind.

He stepped within Mercy’s field of vision and lowered himself to kneel beside her chair. His eyes were just as cold as ever, the scar across his cheek stark under the too-bright lights of the room.

“It will,” he said, smiling. “Trust me. Let’s start, shall we?” He nodded to someone outside Mercy’s field of vision. She could feel them, though. All of them.

Their minds were like Frain’s – warm, familiar, and distinct. Six Talented people. Her mother’s mind had felt like this. She suddenly remembered the other time she’d felt it – when she was thirteen, trying to stow away on a ship at Verath 6. She forced her thoughts away before they could fully form and Frain picked up on them. Instead, she wondered why; why did Talented minds feel so different from nulls? They were like puzzle pieces she hadn’t known were missing, snapping into place and making her whole. She hated it. She didn’t want anything to do with these people, and definitely didn’t want to feel like she belonged with them in some way.

“But you do. You will come to see that, Mercy.” Frain stood up. “Pay attention to the difference. Our minds feel different to you, I can see it in your thoughts. Look at Atrea’s mind. Look as deeply as you can for any hint of that same feeling. It should be there, somewhere. Buried. Her mother was Talented, even if she is not. The ability is there, latent, dormant, genetically recessive.”

Mercy stiffened, shocked. The sting of betrayal bit at her, paranoia raising its ugly head. Why? Why wouldn’t Atrea tell her something like that, when Mercy had shared her own secrets? What else had she kept from her?

But she couldn’t trust anything these people said. Maybe they were lying.

Then Atrea’s thoughts registered, and she realized her friend was as shocked as she was. And just as skeptical. She didn’t believe what Willem Frain was saying, couldn’t believe her father never would have told her. Mercy wasn’t so sure. She’d always felt the old Wolf had his secrets.

She took as deep a breath as her restraints allowed. “Look, even if what you say is true, I still don’t know what you want from me. How do you expect me to do anything to a recessive gene?” It sounded crazy, especially when she said it out loud.

“I don’t know.” Willem gave her a long look. “But you have the gift to do so, and you will figure it out.”

Atrea’s panicked thoughts hit her like spikes, shouted so frantically Mercy winced and raised her shields unconsciously in defense.
What the hell is this guy talking about? He’s crazy, right? He has to be insane, that’s the only possible explanation. Mercy, tell me he’s fucking insane. Tell me—

Out of the corner of her eye, Mercy saw Willem raise a pained hand to his head, wincing. Nobody shouted their thoughts louder than a null in emotional crisis. They usually didn’t even realize it, but it was one of the reasons Mercy always kept her shields up around other people. After a moment, Willem responded to Atrea himself.

“I assure you, Captain Hades, we are all quite sane. I’m sure, despite your unfortunate lack of actual Talent, that you have quite a developed sense of intuition. A sense when something just feels off, or when a deal is about go horribly wrong. A tremor down your spine when a particular man catches your eye at a spaceport, perhaps?”

It took Atrea a moment to answer.

“I—that’s not—”

“Oh, don’t bother denying it. I’ve been through your mind, seen every such incident for myself already.” Frain waved a dismissive hand. “The most recent occurrence was on Yuan-Ki, of course. The clone who served your drinks; you knew there was something off about him, but you kept it to yourself. You felt guilty, wondering if the fact that he was a clone was bothering you on some level. It was not. He was not a good actor, and I’m afraid he was nervous that you would somehow sense the drug he used to spike your drinks. Fortunately, your own guilt kept you from reacting to what your intuition was telling you.”

It took Atrea a moment to process what he was saying and respond.

“I really hate you,” she said at last. “Stay out of my head.” Her tone wasn’t menacing. It was flat and matter-of-fact. It was the tone Atrea used right before things went really bad and she started shooting people. She used to carry two metal throwers, antiquated weapons that fired metal projectiles that would rip through flesh and bone in a messy explosion of blood and gore. Since joining the Navy, she’d had to switch over to standard disruptors. They stunned their targets, jolting them with enough electricity to knock them down and out long enough to throw restraints on them. Of course, Atrea carried a backup piece she’d modified herself. It burned through flesh and organs and left nothing but charred tissue behind. Stunning people was all well and good, but she’d been raised never to leave a real enemy at your back. If she survived this, she’d hunt Willem Frain to the ends of the universe.

Mercy thought of all the times Atrea had stopped in the middle of something to change direction, or said it was time to go right before a brawl broke out, or somehow knew port security was nearby when they were supposed to be clear on the other side of the dock. What Willem Frain was saying made sense. For the first time, Mercy started to wonder if he wasn’t actually crazy. Fear skittered like ice through her veins, shuddered down her spine. If he wasn’t crazy, if everything he said was true, what the hell did that make her? What did it all mean?

“Now.” Willem turned toward Mercy. “If you would please drop your shields and do as I have instructed.” He paused. “If you refuse, Atrea will not be returning to her cell.”

The implied threat was clear enough, and unnecessary. Mercy remembered his threats without the reminder. She glared at him, but ultimately did as he asked.

She dropped her shields, and went into her friend’s mind. She stopped just inside the natural shields every null had. They weren’t like Talented shields, but built on instinct and the mind’s unconscious need to protect itself. Usually thin and full of weak places that allowed thoughts to be projected out easily, or a telepath a route in. Atrea’s were a little stronger than this, probably because she was aware of Mercy’s gifts, and that awareness had led to her strengthening her shields without being conscious that they even existed. Not that Mercy invaded her mind often. But sometimes they used her Talent as a way to communicate silently when they needed to. Atrea knew Mercy could read her thoughts, and deliberately directed them at her sometimes, and Mercy actively used her telepathy to tell Atrea things. But she’d never gone past this point, the place where she could read surface thoughts, the things Atrea was actively thinking. Even that could be confusing if she didn’t concentrate.

People really had no idea how chaotic and unorganized their thoughts could be, jumping like quicksilver from subject to subject, layered and overlapping. The mind moved at much greater speeds than the words someone stopped to consciously think to themselves. It could be overwhelming. But over the years, Mercy had developed her own technique for sorting them all out. She allowed the quicksilver thoughts to make just an impression, a flash of insight into what they were about, that quickly faded. She focused on the loudest, most present thoughts. It was a little like trying to focus on your friend’s voice in a crowd if the other people were all talking loudly and at once.

This is impossible. They can’t do this. Mercy can’t do this. I can’t be Talented.
Atrea’s panic made the thoughts come fast and hard, one after the other.

Atrea, it’s me. Look, if I don’t try this, Willem says he’ll kill you. I know this isn’t going to work, but I can’t just do nothing.

There was jumble of too many thoughts at once before Atrea settled on one.
I don’t want to die, but I don’t want this.

I know.
Mercy hesitated, conscious of those who were listening.
I don’t think it will work. I don’t see how it will work. But can you imagine me trying to explain to your father how I just did nothing and let them kill you?

Another chaotic reaction made Mercy wince. Sometimes, talking to Atrea like this gave her a killer headache. She could just imagine what that was going to be like in this place.

No. I don’t like it. What if you mess something up? What if you…break my brain?

There it was, the real reason Atrea was panicking. If she was honest, Mercy was worried about that, too. She’d never done anything like this before.

I’m going to be really careful. I have an idea of what he wants me to try. I probably won’t even find what he’s asking me to look for, so I doubt I’ll be doing anything at all. Just looking. Okay?

This time, the jumble of mixed up thoughts went on even longer. Finally, a single thought emerged.
Okay. Just be really careful. This is the only brain I have, you know.

Normally, the joke would have elicited a smile from Mercy. But right now it just amplified her anxiety.
I know.

She stayed where she was for a moment. She allowed her awareness to extend beyond Atrea, and felt the six Talented minds in the room once more. It was comforting, even if she didn’t want it to be. The brilliant warmth of their Talent melted away her fear and anxiety, each one a soft golden glow she could almost see.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged deeper into Atrea’s mind, looking for the same warmth, the same hint of light. The deeper she went, the more thoughts sped past her. Mercy tried to ignore them. She didn’t want to invade Atrea’s privacy like this, didn’t want to know her friend’s most private hopes and fears.

It was impossible not to hear them. Suddenly, she knew how much Atrea loved the order of the military, the black and white precision of it. She knew how much she missed her father and Mercy, the conflict she wrestled with trying to decide whether to sign on for another tour of service. She knew about the man in Atrea’s life she’d never mentioned, the one she’d spent the last four years in a relationship with until distance and secrets finally pulled it all apart. The loss and hurt were still fresh.

Memories started surfacing then, pulling Mercy even deeper into her mind. She understood, suddenly, why Atrea was so determined to help Mercy find her mother: because she’d never known her own, and the lack was this big empty hole her father would never talk about. She saw her friend’s pride when she was selected for a special unit in the Navy, how her scores in gunnery were the top of her class, the top of her unit. She saw the first time Atrea figured out that her new best friend was Talented. She saw her fears, her shame and embarrassment that Mercy would know every secret thought, that she might not like her anymore. She saw when Atrea realized her new military friends would never understand her smuggler upbringing, and the evasions and lies she told about her past.