Stark Surrender (18 page)

“You want to move everyone in the morning?” Bronc asked.

“No,” Creed said slowly, “Now. I’ll link Taara, have her throw our stuff in bags.”

“Right. I’ll link Zaë, then Natan. He can bring Kai and Kiri’s things.”

Kiri didn’t care where they took her, as long as she got to curl up and sink into the oblivion of sleep. After the events of the last day and night, she didn’t want to wake for a long, long time.

* * *

Kai followed Bronc and Kiri onto the LodeStar cruiser moored on the rooftop landing pad of Darkrunner’s building.

Someone handed him a warm throw to spread over Kiri’s lap. He tucked it over her wrap. She blinked drowsily at him, and then closed her eyes again.

“May I get you anything, sir?” Stark’s attendant, Opal asked Kai.

“Ah, no,” Kai said, and then wished he could get used to being asked so he could at least think before he refused the constant offers of help, service, warm drinks, etc., that Stark’s people proffered. He was just so accustomed to trying to blend into the background. For a slave, being was noticed was often very unpleasant.

“What happened to Ms. te Nawa?” the woman asked in hushed tones. “Why is her throat bandaged?”

“Your boss woke up rezzed,” Kai said, not in the mood to coat the news in stardust. “He attacked her. Thought she was an assassin.”

Then, when the woman’s face tightened in dismay, shame flushed Kai’s cheeks.

“She’ll be okay,” he added. As long as Stark stayed away from her.

Opal gazed sadly at Kiri. Huh, it seemed more than one being still hoped she’d somehow end up with Stark. Kai had seen Stark’s houseman Natan, and the pilot Rak with that same look.

Wasn’t gonna happen if Kai had anything to say about it. The magnate had lost his mind. That meant Kai would be standing between Kiri and Stark, no matter how much power and wealth the man wielded. For the first time in his life, Kai had someone beside himself to protect, and he was not going to fail.

True, Lady Ellianne had recovered from the slaver’s drugs, but she hadn’t been so deep that she was paranoid, trying to attack everyone who got near her. And she hadn’t kidnapped the man she wanted at laser point either. Kai hoped Stark’s violent rampage down in the streets of the city hadn’t included any more innocents.

The cruiser slipped through the clouds and streamers of rain, above scrapers thrusting up out of the mist. They passed a towering obelisk with lights sliding up and down the sides in graceful patterns. The New Seattle Space Needle, Kai’s com guide told him. It would look a lot better in the sunshine. He pulled his jacket collar higher about his throat, shivering.

“Blanket, sir?” Opal asked again. When Kai looked up, the woman was holding one out to him.

Kai accepted it with a shame-faced grin. “Thanks. Can’t seem to get warm here.”

“Very common for visitors to feel chilled here, sir,” Opal said. “One becomes acclimatized.”

Not him. Kai couldn’t wait to get back to Frontiera, to warm sunshine, clean air and room to move without tripping over another being, likely scruffy or dangerous.

He was jolted by the realization that for the first time in his memory, he had a choice of where to live. And someone to want to be near—Kiri.

They slowed over a huge, octagonal building with a four landing pads on the flat roof.

“This is Stark’s headquarters?” he asked. “It’s huge.”

“Yes sir,” Opal agreed. “It takes up an entire city block. It’s only six stories high, but much of the building is underground.”

Ah. Safer that way. Although what was aboveground looked sturdy enough to withstand a bomb. And the structure managed to look massive, powerful and intriguing ... rather like Bronc Berenson.

Kai jerked his thoughts back to safety. He was glad to have the man in charge of their group’s safety, and that was all.

He watched uniformed medtechs scurrying to unload Stark on his medcot, and whisk him down into the huge building below. He was surprised when more techs guided another medcot on board.

“For your sister,” Bronc said. “We’ll make sure she’s okay, then she can have a good, long rest. And you too.”

“Thanks,” Kai said gruffly. “She deserves special care after …”

“After what Mr. Stark did,” Bronc finished for him. “I know, Kai. We’ll treat her like gold.”

Chapter Twenty

In the state of the art medcenter deep in the center of LodeStar HQ, Joran and Creed faced the team of LodeStar doctors, a silver-haired man, an Occulan and a small, ebony-skinned woman, in neat white medsuits.

They’d reviewed Logan’s horrific physical injuries.

Tal’s medtech had, surprisingly, done everything these doctors would have done to begin treatment. The LodeStar doctors had continued with skin and hair regen, although they agreed that Logan’s right eye was gone for good.

This new revelation was even worse.

A large holovid revolved in the air before them. It showed Logan’s brain, his skull a faint shell around it ... and there was clearly something very wrong. Something more than the injuries from the beating, which were horrendous enough.

Parts of his brain glowed a gentle grayish white, with a red tracery of venous blood supply.

But a sinister ebony stain blotted out a sizeable portion of the brain, with traceries that seemed to emanate from the nasal cavities in his skull. They had Logan, but he might be beyond rescue.

“What the hells is that?” Joran asked, dread nearly choking him. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and he was so tense he was vaguely surprised he didn’t shatter when Creed moved in close and bumped him.

“It’s not good,” Creed muttered, as if to himself.

“You are correct,” the woman doctor said. “We believe it’s some kind of drug.”

“Great God, you and Zaë were right,” Creed said. “This must be the same drug the slavers administered to her.”

“Not quite the same.” Joran shook his head slowly. “I saw her brain scan in that clinic on Indigo, and it looked nothing like this. This is dark ... and massive.”

The Occulan nodded and indicated the holovid scan. “It is indeed. You can see it entered the brain here, through the sinuses—either nasally or orally. Mr. Stark may have ingested it accidentally or—”

“No. Someone administered it to him,” Creed broke in. “Poisoned him.”

The Occulan’s eye stalks trained on him. “Mr. Stark has never been known to take illegals ….” His voice trailed off, making it almost a question.

“Of course he quarking hasn’t,” Joran snapped. “Logan would never take anything—except for whiskey or wine, or a mild pain gesic.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry.” Joran shoved his hair back with one hand. “Please, tell us all you know.”

“The drug seems to be inert now,” the woman said. “It has done enough, though, having effectively closed off large portions of the pre-frontal cortex. This is why Mr. Stark has shown no recognition of you and of this familiar place, or of his role here at LodeStar. His memories are locked away from him, as if in a vault. They are—or should be—still there, but he cannot reach them.”

The other medtech moved in to point at another area of Logan’s brain on the holovid.

“However, the temporal lobe, here, is still functioning in conjunction with the hippocampus, so he can process short-term memories and formulate them into long-term memories. In other words, he should retain everything he’s experienced since the drug stopped advancing.”

“Thank God for that,” Joran muttered, relief nearly swamping him. If they couldn’t get all of the old Logan back, at least he could function.

Creed squeezed his shoulder. “He still has his former memories, then?”

“Well ... in a manner of speaking, yes. But if so, they are inaccessible to him. And we can’t guarantee that they ever will be accessible.”

Joran gazed down at his brother, at his face, swollen, bandaged and bruised, the skin grafts not yet healed where the acid had burned him and the brutal beating had battered him, the bandage over his missing eye. And the unseen damage was worst of all, trapping Logan inside his wounded brain.

Rage and pain boiled in Joran’s gut, a brew nearly as noxious as the acid the gangers had used to maim his brother.

“You’ve got to help him,” he said. “Get in there and clean that shit out. Isn’t there some kind of medicine or ray or—hells, I don’t know—something you can use to break it down?

The doctors looked at him and Creed.

“We can try,” the man said. “We’ve taken a sample of Mr. Stark’s brain tissue, and our best techs are working on it. But they’ve never seen anything like this. They’ll need to decode its chemical makeup. Only then can they begin formulating a possible antidote. We daren’t give him anything until then.”

“How long will that take?” Creed asked.

“Possibly weeks.”

“What? We don’t have weeks,” Joran said, meeting Creed’s gaze.

They both knew he meant the meeting with Azuran, to keep the AquaTerraCon deal from falling apart. Millions had already been spent, billions more would be spent, and there were thousands of jobs dependent on the expedition going forward, and then many thousands more as it opened up more areas of Frontiera to development. If confidence was lost in the consortium, the deal might collapse. And if that happened, fortunes would be lost.

Joran turned back to the medical team. “Why can’t you figure it out? You’ve got this facility, the best credit can buy, and you’ve got a galactic database of chemicals.”

The doctors shifted, the humans looking acutely uncomfortable. The Occulan trained several of his eyestalks toward Joran. “That is true. But I repeat, this substance is unlike any we have encountered. We believe it is part organic, part engineered, but it will take time to decipher its chemical coding. We’re doing the best we can. The brain is incredibly complex. We can replace his missing eye with a cybernetic implant that will be better than a real eye—we cannot do that with his brain. All we can do is help it heal”

“Maybe we need some other kind of help,” Creed said.

Joran met his eyes. “Daron Navos.” Creed nodded.

“If it has to do with the mind, an Indigon may be just who we need,” Joran said, a tiny flame of hope lighting inside him. “They helped Zaë after the slavers drugged her.”

He turned back to the doctors. “One last thing. You’ve got the drug used on Lady Ellianne in the database. Couldn’t this be the same shit, just a bigger dose?”

The woman shook her head. “Not entirely, sir. While there are similarities, a much larger component is very different. And we can’t seem to isolate it.”

Joran sighed. “Then Navos is our only hope ... for speed, that is.”

Creed nodded. “I’ll contact him.”

“I’ll get transportation for him,” Joran added. “The fastest we’ve got.”

When Bronc answered his link, Joran let him know what he wanted.

“The commander’s already on his way,” Bronc said. “He knew we were searching for Mr. Stark, told me to contact him the sec there was any opportunity for him to help. I linked him when we found Mr. Stark, and he hopped a cruiser.”

“Are you part Indigon too?” Joran asked wryly. “You’re exhibiting empathic powers yourself.”

“I’d do anything for Mr. Stark,” was the instant reply.

“We all would,” Joran answered. “Let’s hope that’s enough.”

“And then we’re gonna find whoever did this to him,” Creed said, his voice quiet, but his blue eyes burning with cold fire, “and annihilate them.”

“Completely,” Joran agreed.

Bronc nodded. “Scorch the fucking earth until they’re nothing but ashes.”

* * *

Joran was lying in bed, his woman sleeping on his shoulder, his arm around her. The family and their belongings had been moved with amazing speed and efficiency with Natan in charge. It was now early morning in New Seattle.

But although he was exhausted, Joran was not asleep. He was staring into the shadows in Logan’s guest room, worrying about his brother.

He had few good memories of his own early years. In many ways, his life had begun when the crèche director, worn out with his juvenile delinquency, had delivered him to Logan. And to Logan’s mother, but Joran did not count that sorry bitch. Logan had been the one to take him in, to make sure he had enough to eat, clothes to wear, and was safe from harm. Joran had stopped acting out, because there was no longer any point. He had someone now who cared about him, who listened to him and put him first.

And Joran knew damn well that Logan had worked not only brutally hard, but smart, to do this for him, and later for Creed. Early on, Logan had displayed a phenomenal grasp of business, and a knack for dealing with beings both older and wealthier than himself.

He’d owned his first factory by the time he was twenty-one, and LodeStar Corporation had grown swiftly from there. Giving both Joran and Creed the galaxy to choose from. And far from being bitter when both of them chose to move far away, Logan had simply worked out a way to follow them, at least part of the time.

Now that Joran had someone who depended on him, Zaë, he finally understood his older brother’s drive to watch over him and Creed. And for the first time, it was Joran and Creed’s turn to look after Logan. But more than duty, it felt like a privilege.

But was there any hope at all of bringing back the Logan they knew, admired and loved—even when he drove them to distraction? Joran had a pretty good idea that Kiri had glossed over her account of her time with Logan. From the wounded look in her eyes, some harsh things had been said, maybe even done.

And since Joran knew—hells, they all knew—that Logan needed a good woman every bit as much as his brothers did, and that he wanted Kiri but kept screwing up his chances with her, Joran was worried Logan had damaged for all time his chances of getting her.

He was also worried Logan might never be able to take back the controls of LodeStar Corporation and all its subsidiary businesses. And since neither Creed nor Joran had the desire to run the company, Logan’s life work would have to be divided up and sold off, or they’d have to find a new CEO they could trust with that much power and wealth. It was a colossal responsibility.

With all of this to keep him awake, when Joran’s com pinged quietly in his ear, he was ready.

“Navos is here,” Creed said quietly

These words galvanized Joran. He slid from Zaë’s grasp and drew the covers over her. He pressed a kiss to the top of her silky hair and glided into the dressing room, where he donned the clothing waiting for him, shoved his feet into his soft boots, and left the bedroom, scraping his hair back in a tail with a band.

Creed was waiting in the hall, already dressed, his short blond hair sticking up this way and that. “The commander is downstairs in the medcenter,” he told Joran as they strode to the elevator. “He arrived, went straight to Logan. One of Bronc’s people just linked me.”

“That’s good,” Joran said. “Since all the fancy doctors Logan has on staff don’t seem to be able to do skrog shit for him”

“They’re doing all they can for the physical, though,” Creed pointed out. “And he’ll need that strength to heal mentally.”

When they reached Logan’s room, a tall, lean man with a cap of ebony hair sat at his bedside, eyes closed, one hand on Logan’s forehead, while the Occulan doctor waited silent on the other side of the bed.

When the Indigon lifted his head, Joran and Creed moved into the room.

Navos opened his eyes, and stared down at Logan. “I concur with your diagnosis,” he said to the doctor. “This is the work of some chemical substance. Which does seem to stopped moving forward. I sense no further intrusion working in his mind.”

Joran stepped forward. “Commander Navos. Thank you for coming all this way.”

“Navos,” Creed said, nodding to the Indigon. “Think you can help him?”

Navos rose to face them, his eyes a deep, compelling blue in his austere face. “I think you have a formidable medtech team at your disposal who should be consulted first.”

The Occulan bowed respectfully. “Thank you, Commander, but we all know of your excellent powers.”

“We need you to help him, Commander,” Joran said. “The doc here says their methods may take weeks, which we haven’t got. The regen tech is helping heal his body, and they can replace his eye with cybernetics that will enhance his vision beyond human, but it can’t work on this. Please, get in there and use those formidable powers of yours to heal him. Some of your colleagues healed my woman, and you’re the best there is—Logan needs you.

Navos nodded, accepting this praise as his due. “I’ll do what I can, of course. But first, we must wait till he awakens, so he can assent to my intrusion.”

“No,” Joran said instantly. “We can’t wait. The shape he’s in, I don’t think he’ll ever agree. He’ll see it as another plot to take him down.”

“He’s right,” Creed said. “Logan’s paranoid, thinks we’re with the gang who attacked him, left him for dead. That’s how far gone he is.”

Navos looked down his long nose at them. “I will not do work of this magnitude on an unwilling subject.”

Joran leaned toward him, hands clenching in an effort to keep from grabbing the ice-cold Indigon and shaking him.

“This is not the Logan Stark we know and love, Commander,” he said, hearing the snarl in his voice and not quarking caring. “This is a crippled man, whom we may never get back if you don’t help him. Look at him—we have to put restraints on him to keep him from attacking the medtechs! He even attacked his woman, thinking she was an assassin sent to take him out.’