"And then there's dushá minya. You know," Tal mused, "I think my people must have been strong on soul at one time, or ‘my soul' wouldn't be what we murmur to women we love."
"Keep that singular, Captain."
Tal laughed. "Agreed, dushá minya." He dropped a light kiss on her mouth and found her smiling, almost smugly, when he raised his head.
"I like being your soul," she told him. Suddenly, her eyes went wide. "What happened to Scorpio?"
"I sent her into Choya in front of us. She's still there."
Kass glowered. "So Tegge's for real?"
"She could have blocked our way into Choya, Kass, given Fleet time to catch up. She didn't. So, yes, I'm afraid you're going to have to accept her as one of us."
"You know something, Captain Rigel?" Kass said, "all I really want to know is how soon I can get out of here?" Her eyes added a great deal more. Tal could only hope his anatomy would settle down before the doctor came charging in to examine his newly awakened patient.
How, in the name of Omnovah, had he ever thought he had a full life before he met Kass Kiolani?
Chapter 28
Kass was twelve when her parents took her aboard the royal yacht for the five-hour cruise to Cyros gate, the carefully protected back door to Psyclid, and entrusted her with the coordinates and the key to opening the very private wormhole. But today she would sit quietly at Tac and let Jagan show off. He so loved the thrill of it . . . and she had experienced enough notoriety since their spectacular escape from Fleet to last for months to come. Any progress she'd made toward being treated as just another member of the crew had exploded in a shower of awe. However grateful Astarte's crew might be, Kass was back to being a Psyclid freak. So let Jagan do it. Flaunting his gifts in Reg faces seemed to give him joy.
"This is it," Mical said from his position at Nav. "If there's a gate here, the scanners don't see it any more than my eyes."
Tal sat easily in his captain's chair, seemingly undisturbed by an invisible wormhole. After all, Kass reasoned, if a Psyclid could disappear a huntership, why not a jumpgate as well? "Mondragon?" Tal questioned.
"The shielding is similar to the ridó around Blue Moon," Jagan returned, evidently in one of his more expansive moods and making no attempt to turn a simple psychic key into a bit of mind-bending black magic. "If you know the key, the curtain opens. If you don't, your ship will bounce off, ricocheting in any direction but into the wormhole."
Kass felt Tal's surprise, saw his shoulders stiffen as he took in the implications of Jagan's off-hand reply. He didn't know, he truly didn't know. Jagan-rarely, if ever, careless-had assumed Tal and his rebels understood the workings of the ridó that protected them. In fact, until this moment, even Kass had not been certain Tal didn't know the secret of Blue Moon's very special force field. But, incredible as it seemed, it appeared he did not.
Kass grinned into her hologlobe. Regs, even Reg rebels, tended to swagger, convinced they were the kings of technology. Yet Captain Talryn Rigel seemed to think the heavens simply opened up and allowed him through any time he wanted in or out of Blue Moon. Now there was a topic for tonight's pillow talk.
"Voilà, Cyros Zed." Jagan's hand rose in a dramatic magician's wave. A circular shimmer popped up on her holo, almost dead ahead of Astarte's icon.
"Glad I didn't place that bet," Dorn muttered from his seat beside her. Kass caught an echoing chortle from Zee-Zee at Comm.
Tal ignored the buzz. "Sound gate alarms. Helmsman, take us in."
Good. Tal was wasting no time on this final leg home. Without hesitation, he was entering a gate he'd never heard of, one that had been invisible only moments before. How very far he'd come from the Fleet captain who had a hunch that a Psyclid cadet had more to offer than quick wits.
But just wait until they were alone in bed . . . Tal Rigel was in for a surprise.
In the final moments before the icons for Cyros Zed and Astarte winked out as they plunged into the wormhole's vortex, Kass saw Scorpio follow them in. If Jordana Tegge wasn't what she said she was, Kass had to give the woman major points for sheer nerve. For even if her defection was real, she was blindly following Astarte into the unknown, with no idea of the secure, infinitely beautiful respite that waited at the end of this final tunnel through space.
And if Tegge was playing a deeper game . . . ?
Kass scowled at her now blank hologlobe, snapped it off. Blue Moon was now less than one Reg day away. Were they bringing home help or the seeds of destruction?
If Tal had any doubts, he certainly didn't show them, Kass thought some hours later, not even a single deep down qualm only a soulmate could find. He was S'sorrokan coming home in triumph, bringing the rebellion's finest prize yet. They'd celebrated their entrance into Cyros's protective cocoon with the best the ship's chef had to offer, plus vintage lunelle and after-dinner ullali so strong it made Kass's eyes water.
And then they'd celebrated more privately, with Kass realizing for the first time how much of himself Tal had held back, the parts bound by duty, by worry, by what next? Tonight, however, he was all hers, every last micron of him. He saw only her, felt only her. Drew in essence of Kass and gave her essence of Tal in return.
They had time, glorious, leisurely time to explore every inch of each other, flesh heating to incandescent, souls sparking off each other, merging into a glorious supernova of minds melding as perfectly as bodies. Soaring into infinity. Shattering. Drifting back down in a shower of sparks that seemed to light the room like fireflickers on a dark Blue Moon night.
Kass blinked, clutched Tal tight. The sparks were all in her mind, of course, but they'd been so bright . . . "Tal," she whispered, "did you see them too?"
His chest still heaved against hers, panting for breath, but he managed to lick her earlobe. "I thought you made them." His mouth brushed down her cheek, slowing to savor her lips.
"Are you sure you don't have a sorcerer somewhere on your Reg family tree? I think we came close to starting a fire in here."
"Metaphorically speaking-"
"For real."
Tal chuckled and rolled off her, tucking himself close to her side. "There are many things I'm learning to believe, dushenka, but that's not one of them. Not that the moment wasn't very special"-he swooped in for a fast kiss-"but the only thing burning was us."
Kass wasn't so sure, but the moment was too perfect for argument. But maybe-now that she was getting her breath back-this might be a good time for a bit of gentle teasing. Regulons were definitely too full of themselves . . . not that she didn't love Tal just the way he was, but sometimes a girl just had to take any shot she could. Remind him S'sorrokan had met his match.
"Tal?"
"Um-m?"
"Don't go to sleep! I want to talk to you."
He draped an arm over her chest and gave her a quick squeeze, but not before she'd swear she heard him stifle a groan. "So talk," he said, nuzzling his face into her hair.
"Did you ever wonder how the ridó works?"
"You want to talk about a batani force field?" Tal flopped flat on his back, the arm that had pinned Kass now draped over his face.
"Sorry," she murmured, "but today when Jagan told you the technology was similar to Blue Moon's ridó, I felt your surprise. You've taken it for granted, haven't you? A force field that lets rebels in and out with no problem, yet remains an impenetrable barrier to the Empire?"
Tal lowered his arm, staring up at the ceiling. "And you're trying to tell me what?"
"By the goddess, Tal, did you think it sentient? Did it never occur to you that people, real live people, control it?"
Tal groaned and sat up, feet to the floor, head in his hands. "Kass, this is a really bad moment to tell me I'm an idiot. But, yes, I assumed the blasted curtain was automated, programmed to keep the Empire out."
"It's the best moment to tell you," she countered. "Everything's going right for a change-I'm not kicking you when you're down-and, besides, it's something you really need to know."
"All right, let's hear it." But he kept his eyes on the far wall. Her man was not happy.
"How did you get to Blue Moon the very first time? Tell me what happened."
Tal steepled his fingers in front of his face and thought back to . . . chaos. "After we faked Orion's explosion, we had a remarkably easy trip back from Nyx territory. At that point we seemed to have fooled everyone. I'd had almost two years to plan, two years of knowing what I wanted to do and figuring out how to pull it off. I knew exactly where to find a neutral dock where we could make the changes needed. And I knew where I wanted to go after that, the place I hoped to set up a base.