Conduit - M J Marlow (best short books to read txt) 📗

and ate. I knew I was a prisoner now, but I was not going to let that keep me from fighting. So I let my mind move through the minds in the base and was pleased to realize that Wainwright and most of his men were ready to help me. * Wainwright paced his office while his junior officers watched. They had noted his increasing irritation since I had been brought to their base. Some of them thought I was exerting undue influence on people around me. But this belief died as they each took a moment to check the Infirmary and saw what was happening to me. I was the victim here, and they were allowing it to happen. Having sex slaves was one thing, but abusing innocent children was another thing altogether. And the Dyhazri envoy walked around like he owned the place. Wainwright slammed his fist into the top of his desk and they all jumped. “We’ve been blind,” he said to them simply. “I want to be ready for when the base is compromised.” “You really think Senator Gibbons is going to turn us over to that thing?” “I think Senator Gibbons has already turned us over to that thing, Jeffries,” Wainwright replied. “We just don’t realize it.” He looked at them in turn. “The key is that poor little alien they are torturing in the Infirmary.” They all nodded. “Start stockpiling weapons away from the armory. I want a team manning the stairway from the roof. That will be our way out.” “We’re going to take the girl with us, General?” the Captain asked from where he stood by the door. He suddenly stiffened. “If that is all, gentlemen,” he issued the warning phrase, “you know your assignments.” He looked at the General. “I’ll get right on that matter, General.” Wainwright nodded and opened a file on his desk. A moment later, Gibbons stepped into his office. The man made his skin crawl and he was beginning to understand why. Gibbons closed the door and sat down in a chair. He did not speak for a few moments and when he did, it was in cold, angry tone. “Your men were told to stay away from the Infirmary, General,” he said simply. “They are curious about our little guest, Senator,” Wainwright shrugged. “It’s not every day a person sees a little girl who can throw full grown men with her mind.” “And that impresses them?” Gibbons sniffed. “You saw how dangerous this child was, did you not?” “I would expect a frightened child to fight,” Wainwright replied, “when she is being forcibly subjected to medical experimentation without sedation.” “The tests are over,” Gibbons replied. “The alien has been moved into her quarters.” He saw the man’s relief. “I trust your men’s ‘curiosity’ does not translate to interference, General. She belongs to our other guest, and we will lose out on valuable technological and medical advances if we anger him.” “We fought a war to end slavery on this planet, Senator,” Wainwright replied tightly. “It is hard to see it going on right in front of us.” “These are aliens, Wainwright,” Gibbons snapped. “We cannot expect them to behave as we do.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s only a few more days. They are expecting to rendezvous with the vessel that will take our guests to their ruler.” He rose to his feet. “Tell your men to stay out of the Dyhazri envoy’s way.” “Yes, Senator,” Wainwright nodded. He waited until the door closed and then he slammed his fist into the top of his desk. “Like hell that little lady is leaving here a slave! I don’t care if she is an alien.” He picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Captain. Start now.” * I was seated on the top of the rocks bordering the waterfall in the enclosure, eating when the Dyhazri envoy came in. He sat on a boulder on the pool and watched me. I did not like this monster. His mind was a myriad of twists and turns that had me dizzy as I moved through them over the last two days. He was even harder to read than Gibbons, who was human. But I could read him now, and I saw how life had been for the Dyhazri and I knew they had been misled. They were a noble race; not these bloodthirsty slavers they had become. I put my mind to how to turn them back to their true path. “You have a name, don’t you?” I asked him as he removed his uniform and settled into the water with a sigh of pleasure. “I am called Vintek,” he told me as he closed his eyes. “I am the seventeenth of that name in my bloodline.” “Tell me of your world, Vintek,” I asked the leader. “Is it as harsh as your behavior would lead one to expect?” “It is not unlike this enclosure,” Vintek replied. He saw no reason not to humor me. It felt good to remember a place he had not seen in years. “Thick jungles, warm waters, cliff faces. The air is thick and warm, and scented with flowers. The jungles were thick with prey…” “Were?” “Several generations back,” he said to me as he dipped his claws into the water and formed ripples, “a plague ravaged the jungles. It killed 90% of our prey. We were forced off-world to find other sources.” “How did you ever decide that your need for sustenance,” I asked him coldly, “allowed you to enslave other races?” “It was not enslavement, at first,” Vintek remembered the tales. “We paid the other races to raise livestock for us. But the plaque followed us and there was fewer and fewer livestock.” He looked at me. “We grew desperate. We grew used to ordering and being obeyed.” “That is not logical,” I said tightly. “You could have found someone to help you find a cure for your plague. It would have made more sense. What you do now is an abomination to the beliefs your kind have held for centuries.” “What do you know of our beliefs, little one?” Vintek hissed. He cocked his head and guessed. “You are reading me?” He leaped up onto the top of the cliff and clamped his hand on my throat. “We have your little mutant female, prince Ashad,” he said into the air. “We will wait here for you and your brothers to surrender.” He pressed the tips of his claws into my throat and I cried out in pain. “I will end her if you are not here in three hours.” “You bring your deaths to you,” I told him, seeing him and others of his kind dead and dying. “You should have stayed far from here.” “She has farsight?” Gibbons hissed from where he stood outside the enclosure. “The female seeks to undermine our confidence,” the leader replied as he threw me into the pool. “It is a waste of effort.” He looked at Gibbons. “Have our security forces stand ready. We need to secure the base before the Sylenni arrive.” He jumped down and put his uniform back on. Then he yanked me out of the water by the hair. “We must be in a place where we can set our trap, little one.” Wainwright watched all of this from the security offices in shock. He looked from Gibbons to the envoy and knew that the Senator was compromised. He nodded to one of the other men and he sent the orders to the others he could trust. I struck the monster across the snout and he dropped me. I did not stop to think. I ran for the open enclosure gate, shoving Gibbons aside, and out into the corridor. I found the stairwell and opened the door to see four more of the Dyhazri waiting. “You are a delight, little one,” the Dyhazri who captured me laughed as his men bound me fast. “The Emperor is going to enjoy you as his pet.” “Bastard!” I hissed at him and struggled against the bonds. “I will see you all dead long before I ever see your Emperor!” “So fierce!” Vintek laughed as I was brought back to him. “You are totally unlike any other female I have ever known.” He heard approaching footsteps. “We go down. We need to be in their control center.” He nodded to his men. “Teams of ten on every floor. Secure the ape prisoners in one room and stand ready to greet the rebel princes.” He ran the tip of one finger along my jaw. “They will come for their little lab rat.” My captors forced me into the elevator and pinned me in the corner. I found it impossible to struggle. I tried anyway and only succeeded in amusing them. They began to talk about sharing me and my skin was crawling as they described what they would do to me or make me do for them. We arrived in the control center and I watched as they took out the technicians, fastening them to the walls in their webbing. “You are not like other females,” Vintek said as his claws shot out and dug into my arm. “Tell me, little one, what name do you carry?” “Dulcie.” “That means ‘sweet’ in ape tongue, does it not?” the leader smiled. “We shall see just how sweet quite soon.” He turned to his men. “Set up a wall and put her and these apes behind it. Then we set up a perimeter and wait.” He saw me shaking and turned my eyes to his. “Did I hurt you, little one?” He saw the gashes and pointed to one of the humans. “Bring out your aid kit.” The tech did as he was told and Vintek showed him what to use as we were put inside the pen. The man helped me sit down and then ripped my sleeve off. I winced as the peroxide destroyed the bacteria the monster’s claws had transferred into my body. Vintek went back to his seat and watched as the tech cleaned all the wounds he had inflicted. “She is already mind-linked, Leader Vintek,” Gibbons hissed. “Aren’t you afraid she will tell them what we have planned?” “I want them to know,” Vintek replied, keeping his eyes on me. “They get this far, and they still have to get past us to save the little abomination.” He looked at me and his smile had me backing up in fear. “I know if she was mine, I would rip this place apart to get to her.” * Wainwright was on the roof when the Sylenni arrived. He watched the winged aliens land and he was impressed. All five of them were perfect by human standards. They looked like the Dyhazri envoy, except that they were winged. The leader, not the largest he saw with a smile, stepped forward and bowed his head to Wainwright. The intelligence in his dark eyes made Wainwright cringe. This being was beyond anything Wainwright had ever known. “I am the prince Ashad of the Sylenni Alliance,” his voice was warm and full. “My brothers: Bindri, Chadri, Dovid, and Everd. What news of our child?” “They have the girl in the control center,” Wainwright told Ashad as he led them inside. “It is on the lowest level of this building; so we are going to be in for a fight.” “How many Dyhazri?” “At least ten to a floor,” Wainwright told him as they went down the stairs. “We locked the elevator at the bottom when they started pouring in.” He sighed. “My men are moving as well as they can; but they are taking a beating.” “The Dyhazri are our warrior class; specially bred for combat,” Ashad nodded. “Show us the layout of your base and we will make our plans from there.” His eyes went deadly. “If that foul one has hurt