Page 80 of Spark Transform

Hardening her resolve, she cleared her mind and called up the long, nonsensical sequence she’d memorized long ago, visualizing each word as she spoke it aloud.

It took all she had to doggedly push all the words into his mind, all the while ignoring the pain threatening to blow his head off. Pain she caused.

The vast, hidden vault of his memories flooded in and drowned his every thought. She only stayed in his mind long enough to force his talent to activate the shields she’d given him.

She eased him to the floor, where he curled into a ball, moaning. Neirra and Ayorinn had warned him that it would take weeks, perhaps even months, to fully reintegrate his personality. She doubted they anticipated that the Legacy would take so many more years to unfold than they’d expected. Or that she’d have to stun him first to get his attention.

Her healer talent told her he was already slipping into insensibility. Hurriedly, she removed the detention cuffs, then urged him into the uniform tunic. His uncoordinated movements seemed restless, like an anesthetized patient instinctively trying to move away from danger.

By the time she guided the medical capsule into the hallway, he was nearly comatose. Her healer talent said his body was stressed but not damaged. So far, his shields were holding.

Looking at the two cargo bags, she realized that with Tuzan out of commission, she needed to adjust the arrangements for getting her and Tuzan out of the system.

She pulled out cosmetics from her bag and found a skin stylus in the apartment’s fresher. Tuzan soon had the sallow, hollow, spotty look of someone who might be contagious. Her own short, spiky hair was now a brilliant rainbow of color to match her kaleidoscope eyes, and the abstract artwork on her neck and hands pushed the boundaries of military decorum. If she could remember to chatter and smile a lot, no one who knew Samara Akaramides would recognize her. She could buy a full-body mod later.

Medical capsules were designed to be easy to load, so it didn’t take long to get Tuzan inside. She told the capsule’s AI to keep the patient comfortable and quiet. While it did that, she tweaked the military records yet again, then put on her coat and slung both bags over her shoulder.

Now they just had to trust her brave little orbital flitter’s AI to get them up through the storm of the millennium and onto the Mabingion Space Station. They had a ride to catch.

The billet officer of the CGC Space Div frigate Yu Lan’s gave her a deeply dubious look. “I don’t care if it’s got the Lost Queen of Albion” — he stabbed a greasy finger twice through the holodisplay — “it’s against regs to keep a medical capsule in your quarters. That’s what the medical sections are for.” The officer’s tone sounded like an exhausted parent trying to reason with an exuberant toddler.

Samara, or Ground Div Security Corporal Galierene Ling, as all the military records currently declared her to be, summoned up a sympathetic smile. “I sync ya’, but my orders say I gotta stay with it at all times. So either it stays outta the way with me, or I crib next to it in med sec.” She shrugged nonchalantly, as if she didn’t desperately need to get on this ship. “Your call. You wanna kick it up-ranks and get your Captain to ask Subgeneral Kosmin-Thomar about the orders? I’ll wait.” She heaved a loud sigh and rubbed her itchy ear where the new topaz stud pierced it. “God, I love my job.”

The officer frowned as she looked from Samara to the capsule and back to the holodisplay. Samara was beginning to suspect she’d have to spell it out.

The man leaned closer to the display and squinted. “Kosmin-Thomar. Isn’t that your capsule occupant?”

“Pro’lly pure coincidence, doncha think?” Samara winked broadly. “No self-respectin’ Ground Div Subgeneral’s golden boy would glide too high on back-alley street chems and need his brain-burned self escorted to the home planet while he recovers.”

“Huh?” At last, the officer caught on. “Oh, right.” His eyes rolled as he manipulated the holo with deft movements. “Of course not.”

A slot in the side of his kiosk spat out two hexagonal passes. He handed them both to Samara. “Welcome aboard the Defender Class Yu Lan, Corporal. Wear these at all times. Put his on the capsule for now. The freight lifts are on the far wall to your right. The pass has a hologuide that will tell you how to get to your quarters. Access the orientation briefing before you go anywhere else. It’s a big ship.”

“Yes, sir,” Samara said respectfully. She gave the officer a carefully casual salute. The poor man had to serve on a ship whose name translated to “fish basket.” All the better names must have been taken.

Defender ships weren’t all that big, but they weren’t small, either. For her purposes, deadheading on a ship with a crew of five hundred meant she and her capsule could easily get overlooked. Once Tuzan regained some competence, they could change their identities again and slip away from anyone who might be looking.

She touched controls to make the capsule rise and follow her through the two-story-high airlock.

For the benefit of the security cameras that likely lined every hallway, she maintained her this-job-tanks attitude all the way to her new quarters. After grounding the capsule against the only wall where it would fit, she dropped both sling bags and pulled down the bed rack to sit. If all went well, they’d be at the jump point to transit within five hours.

She wasn’t sorry to leave her old life behind. The Citizen Protection Service needed to burn.

Her biggest failure was never finding people she could trust with the secret of how to give permanent shields to anyone, including non-minders.

She expected to have a lot of time on her hands for the next few ten-days. Maybe she could come up with an accurate written description instead of demonstrating the technique. Each minder’s internal metaphor and process was as unique as people were, but maybe the right words would point minders with the right talents in the right direction.

Ayorinn would probably call her an idealistic fool, but it seemed to her that shields for everyone could go a long way toward making non-minders less afraid of telepaths who could muck about in their heads. Fear tore humans apart like nothing else.

But first, she and Tuzan had to finish disappearing. Which meant she needed to find the next ship to get herself transferred to. Since she was no longer in CPS systems, her collection of audit access codes and backdoor entry points would inevitably grow stale. Each passing day would make it harder to manipulate military records.

Her gaze landed on Tuzan’s capsule. He’d need time to recover enough to move on his own, but she willed him to hurry. A solo woman escorting a medical capsule was entirely too memorable.

Chapter 28

Planet: Mabingion • GDAT 3242.228

Exhaustion dragged at Arco’s boots. She was running on max adrenaline and zero sleep in the last thirty-six hours. But the sheer, lightheaded relief of having Brenner back kept her moving.