Chapter Sixteen

R egi was trailing his fingers over the soft, smooth skin of Dante's arm with its scattering of almost invisible hairs when his communicator began to buzz again. The fast tempo vibrated louder and louder until he pulled it out of his pocket.

"Problem?" Dante asked.

Regi sat up. "Speak," he said without taking time to locate an earpiece. Hopefully whatever emergency demanded his immediate attention was not a sensitive matter.

"How quickly can you get back here?" Vk asked, breathless with alarm. Even Peaches seemed to pick up on the anxious tone, and she toddled toward Dante. He scooped her up without taking his eyes off Regi.

"Vk?" Fear ran up Regi's spine. Vk didn't panic. There were two absolutes he had learned after years of working with her. First, she had the absolute worst weapons scores an individual could have on the accuracy range without being decertified from security work and second, she never panicked. Ever. And how had she accessed Kowri communication? "What's happened? How are you on a Kowri channel?"

"Gimi patched my signal to you. We received a communication from the temple relating to Ter being denied certain rights due to his new legal status."

"What specifically was said?" Regi asked. He could almost feel his goddess's cold touch down his spine.

"I do not have direct knowledge of what the temple told Ter, but from what junior engineers have reported, it appears that Ter insisted that he is going to visit the temple and explain the exact breadth and depth of their ignorance," Vk said.

"What?" Regi could not imagine a more horrific scenario. "Do not let him leave that ship."

"I have informed him he is not allowed, as has the captain, but he is the one responsible for securing the locks. I do not trust that the exit will remain secure for long."

"He's at the exit?" Regi demanded. A hatch lock would not prove much of a barrier. Setting aside all propriety around the use of public spaces, Regi abandoned the picnic platform and began to run toward the spaceport. Behind him, Dante issued one startled bark, a wordless exclamation that might have some cultural significance to huumans but that the translator failed to interpret.

When Regi leapt over the sagging limb of a tired old tree missing most of its leaves, Dante was only a half stride behind him. For a species with such medical fragility, he was a robust individual.

"Do not allow him to leave the ship," Regi ordered Vk.

"I am hoping to keep him here as long as possible, but short of having a security detail tackle him or fire non-lethal projectiles at him, I do not know how to accomplish that goal."

"Slow him as long as possible. I'm returning with all possible speed."

"It sounds like the shit is well and truly hitting the fan," Dante said between deep breaths. None of that translated, but Regi did not have time to untangle the cultural idiom.

The captain did not have the physical strength nor the hand-to-hand experience to subdue Ter, and Vk was not rated on non-lethal weapons. So Regi needed to reach the ship before Ter could break through whatever command codes the captain would've placed.

In the years Regi had served with Ter, he had cursed the engineer multiple times, but never before had he suspected that the man suffered a lack of common sense. As long as he remained on the ship, Regi could argue he had the ability to re-parent Ter, but he could not predict what would happen if Ter left the ship. That might suggest Regi was incapable of controlling the headstrong engineer.

Regi ran faster. His legs burned with exertion and his breath came in heavy gasps that made his nose sting with the force of the air he was drawing in, but he maintained the pace.

"Door breach. Door breach. Door breach." Vk called into the communicator. "Ter, don't you dare. You are endangering yourself and the crew!"

Regi pushed himself harder. He was still too far away to see more than the top halves of the spaceships looming above the trees. The single Coalition ship sat askew, the line of sensors that should mark the apex pointing drunkenly to one side. Regi needed to know what direction Ter was running in his great foolishness. "Give me a heading!"

Dante passed Regi and darted ahead, weaving through the trees with a nimbleness and power Regi had only seen during their frantic flight from would-be assassins months earlier.

The idea of Dante with his compromised respiration system getting caught between an angry Ter and a vengeful Gavd exalted gave Regi the impetus to run faster despite the physical exhaustion dogging his steps.

Vk's voice came through the communicator, but it had a bouncing, uneven quality that suggested she was running. "He is heading sunrise-bound toward the closest ship that was docked when we arrived." Her concise directions horrified Regi. That was Bekdi's ship. Even the other Kowri who had convicted Ter lacked the sort of derision Bekdi demonstrated every time he spoke about the outsiders, so it was either the first blessings of the gods or wretched luck that had sent Ter in that direction.

Dante vanished behind a huge tree, and Regi could not find him again. He wanted to run faster, but his sides ached, and he feared collapsing. "Report," Regi demanded in a breathless gasp.

"He's covered fifty percent of the distance. Kowri have opened the exterior doors on the ship and the one who often makes derogatory comments regarding Dante's inclusion in temple matters is standing at the bottom of the ramp."

Curse all the gods' blessings. Bekdi was there. He had arranged this. Regi knew it. He had called and said something that made Ter's temper overrule his common sense. Regi even suspected that Bekdi had his subordinates watching the Coalition ship so he would know when Regi was distracted.

That inspired more guilt than Regi was comfortable feeling.

"The Kowri are moving to intercept. Do I interfere?" Vk asked.

If Vk had any hope of stopping Ter, Regi would have asked that of her. Of all of his subordinates, she was the most logical, and the one most likely to dissuade others from bashing each other into organic pulp while under the influence of mind-altering substances. She had proved that skill on more than one station. However Ter was of such an intractable nature that Regi could imagine no outcome where Vk's good sense prevailed.

"Negative. Retreat to safety. Observe only." Regi's feet tangled in the long grasses and he stumbled, catching himself on a young tree that cracked under his weight before he could haul himself upright and begin running again.

"Dante's approaching the Kowri. Kowri weapons are drawn!" For the first time in all the years they'd served together, Vk's voice had a hint of panic.

That reflected the alarm in Regi's own soul. If Bekdi ordered his people to open fire on Dante, Regi was going to channel thousands of years of ancestors, and he would rip Bekdi into little tiny bite-sized pieces and feed him to sacred animals.

No.

Non-sacred animals.

He would collect every little bit of flesh and haul it so far from the temple that animals who had never heard the voice of a single god would ever feast on his bloody remains.

And then Regi would collect the excrement of those animals and burn it to ash and drop it into a black hole.

"Report!"

"Dante approaches the Kowri with hands low, but Ter appears to believe that shouting louder than anyone else will force others to concede to his brilliance." Vk had to be upset to get that snarky.

Regi ran faster, and now his lungs hurt. His chest muscles ached from the efforts of expanding his lungs and still it wasn't enough.

"I have retreated to the ramp of our ship, so I cannot hear words, but Dante has grabbed Ter's arm and appears to be attempting to dissuade him from physically pummeling the Kowri in charge."

Regi would have growled had he possessed enough air. He would have to settle for flaying Ter alive once he got his hands on the godforsaken moron.

"Kowri guards have surrounded them." Vk said.

If Divashi had ever looked with favor upon either of them, Regi prayed that she would now hold Dante in her hands and shield him.

Regi broke through a line of thick berry bushes marking the edge of the wooded area so the shipyard was laid out in front of him. The planetary rings reflected the sun so that it glinted off the docked ships, but seeing the ships only reinforced the distance Regi still had to run. He had no idea how Dante had reached Ter's side so quickly, but Regi had to stop to breathe before the heavy in-breaths threatened to pull his nostrils closed from the sheer force of the inhale.

"They all appear to be retreating into the Kowri ship," Vk said.

Another Gavd ship blocked Regi's ability to see the conflict, but her words drove him to start running again despite the pain in his chest. The Coalition should require a higher standard of physical endurance for their security officers. Regi planned to write a strongly worded report on the subject as soon as he managed to escape the clutches of the gods' twin blessings.

As Regi came closer, he spotted a cluster of individuals near Bekdi's ship. Dante and Ter were too close to the open door. The hair on Regi's arms stood on end. He slowed to a walk but strode across the hard-packed ground with a confidence he didn't feel. He would need to bluff his way through this situation.

Regi was planning the brilliant verbal attack he would soon launch when the spaceport alarms rang. The cluster of individuals near Bekdi's ship surged toward the open hatch, and Dante vanished inside.

"No!" Regi roared. The hatch closed and the outer structures of Bekdi's ship began to vibrate with the force of the engines.

No. No. No.

Fury rushed through Regi's veins. Regi was tempted to sprint for the ship and beat on the outer hatch until Bekdi let him in or let Dante and Ter out. However, he knew what happened to flesh exposed to a launching ship. His death would benefit no one except Bekdi, and Regi would not give that godless, earless, son of a hairless mother any advantage in this fight.

Instead Regi ran for the Coalition ship. As soon as he caught his breath, he would endure the humiliation of asking for help from the most terrifying exalted he knew. His mother.