The Hostage in Hiding, page 16
Were all guys like this pirate? Surely not, right? I mean, after twenty years of marriage, Dad still only had eyes for Mom. My brother Eric didn’t make a drooling fool of himself whenever my friends came over for a visit. And I already knew the pirates were a bunch of sickos. So most guys were probably fine. For the sake of my future dating life, I sure hoped I was right.
I’d let my mind wander, so yanked my attention back to the pirate’s emotional landscape. It was just as barren of warm, human emotions as all the other pirate minds had been. I dodged the sparks of lust as best I could and shuddered at the visions carried by the ones I couldn’t avoid. Flashes of greed hit me now and then, too, but there weren’t as many of those as I’d expected. Maybe that was because the pirate had women all around him and the money he expected to get for the passengers wasn’t in his hand yet?
Whatever. I wasn’t inside the guy’s head to figure out what drove his depraved desires. I was here to get him to go to Conley and Barber.
If I was a telepath, I could probably just give him a direct order to go to my bodyguards. But I’m an empath. How could I do that just by using the guy’s emotions?
I had to try something, so I ordered, It sure would be fun to taunt the dead rich girl’s bodyguards. Laugh at them for completely failing at their job. Yeah, that would be the funniest thing ever. I bet it will scare the rest of the passengers, too, and that will make them easier to handle.
I stopped sending orders and watched the emotions flying around me. Since I wasn’t dodging the sparks, a lot more of them hit me. At first, the sparks were the usual mix of lust and greed. If I’d had a stomach, those visions would have turned it. So, I guess it’s just as well I couldn’t feel my body while I was inside another mind.
Then a spark filled with malicious glee hit me. Another followed. Then another. They all conveyed visions of a mighty pirate looming over two cringing men and laughing.
Bingo!
Yes, I ordered, go lord it over those two bodyguards! They deserve it. Living the easy life with those rich people, when you have to risk your life as a pirate just to get money and women! Oh yeah, you should definitely make those guys regret the day they ever saw you!
Maybe I was pouring it on a bit thick, but none of the emotions flying around me held any suspicion. They just held more and more sadistic joy.
And then the sparks of emotion coalesced into a bright beam streaming out of the pirate’s mind. Praying that meant Conley or Barber were at the other end of the beam, I caught hold and rode the pirate’s cruelty out of his head and into the unknown.
STRAWBERRIES MEAN LIFE
I crashed into the strongest mental barrier I’d run into yet. Unlike all the other barriers I’d run into, I didn’t simply smash through this one. I got stuck, instead. I felt like I’d tried wriggling through an opening that was too small for me and my hips got stuck.
In the real world, I’d try going backwards. Okay, in the real world, I’d never have tried pulling myself through such a small opening. Not unless whatever was behind me was worse than the thought of getting stuck. But that was the situation I faced now. Not entering this mind meant giving up on my bodyguards. Or letting them throw their lives away for no reason.
I couldn’t do that. For eight years, Conley and Barber had been there for me. Ready to trade their lives for mine. There was no way I could let myself fail the first time they needed me to be there for them.
So I pushed and pulled and squirmed and wriggled and cursed and clawed and suddenly popped through the barrier and into the mind beyond. But was it Conley’s or Barber’s mind, or some random passenger the pirate felt like taunting?
I was pretty sure the mind belonged to one of my bodyguards. I mean, they’re about as strong-willed and hard-headed as two men can be. That’s why Granddaddy put them in charge of my security team. The guys in charge of my sibs’ teams were so similar that the three of us used to swap you-won’t-guess-what-my-bodyguard-did stories. We’d whisper and laugh and cast surreptitious glances at our bodyguards to see who watched us with the most expressionless stares. Conley and Barber almost always won that competition. They never let emotion show. Never let it show to us kids, at least. And the surrounding mind was exactly like those faces.
Emotionless.
Dark.
I expected that. What I didn’t expect was the oppressive weight I felt. The mind around me felt… thick? No, not that. Restricting. Controlled. Hard to move through. And that gave me more hope that I’d entered one of the two minds I wanted.
I... swam is the best word I can come up with. I swam through the darkness, looking for some sign of emotional life. This was only the second non-pirate mind I’d entered—Sofia’s was the first, obviously—and I hadn’t considered the difference between the normal and pirate minds until now. Every pirate mind I’d seen was filled with flitting, flashing emotions. So many emotions I couldn’t dodge them all, no matter how hard I tried. But I had to go looking for emotions in the other minds. Except for when Sofia faced Paco’s mother, but then her emotional overload made sense. But the pirate minds were all emotion, all the time. It was like the pirates never grew up. Like they never learned to think beyond their latest whim or desire.
I spotted a light in the distance, abandoned all thoughts about pirates and their minds, and swam towards the bright spot. The light came from a bunch of fuzzy balls. I recognized those from the first time I was inside Sofia’s head. They were memories that evoked powerful emotions. As I neared the scene, I realized the balls floated around the dark, vague shape of a man.
The man caught a bundle of light and cradled it. After a moment, he released the ball and reached for another. Then another, and another. Each time the man released a memory, his form was darker than it was when he caught it.
Why was that? I’d seen nothing like it in the other minds. Then it came to me.
It was grief. And every memory drove his mind deeper into it.
That meant this had to be Conley’s or Barber’s mind, right?
There was one way to be certain. I reached out and caught a passing memory.
Bright afternoon sunlight shone through the leaves of a tall tree. One I recognized from our backyard on Ark’s Landing. I watched through someone else’s eyes as a preteen girl scampered through the tree’s lower limbs. Those limbs were three or four meters off the ground, and the girl zipped around on them without a care in the world.
I watched her grab a small branch and put too much trust in its strength. The girl’s weight shifted. The branch broke. She lost her balance and—
Fear shot through the watcher as the girl fell from the branch. He threw himself beneath her, just in time to break her fall with his body.
Another man—Barber—rushed into view, and asked, “Are you all right, Miss Connaught?”
She waved the question off with a laugh. “Yeah. I got lucky and landed on Conley.”
I had my own memory of that fall. But mine was comical, and all about how my highly trained bodyguard couldn’t get out from under a falling girl. Why had I never realized why I landed on Conley instead of the hard ground? Because it made a better bodyguard story to share with my sibs? Whatever the reason, I felt ashamed at the memory now.
But I also felt relief that I was inside Conley’s mind. Now all I had to do was figure out how to tell him I wasn’t dead. Maybe the answer lay inside one of Conley’s memories of me?
Praying that was the case, I tossed aside the memory of my fall and reached for another ball of light. I had a lot of memories to sort through and was short on time. I had to find just the right memory before the pirate who brought me to Conley taunted my bodyguards into killing him.
I grabbed another of Conley’s memories.
He stood in a wide-open meadow, his eyes roaming the countryside. On the edge of his perception, a group of teenage girls sat in a circle, whispering and giggling and listening to music. The oldest of the bunch—the older sister of Sandra, my best friend at the time—held court, telling us about the boys vying for her hand.
I didn’t know exactly what kind of memory I was looking for, but that one wasn’t it. I tossed it aside and reached for a third memory.
He entered our house’s security room. Barber sat at a desk watching a bank of monitors.
“How is she?” Barber asked.
“Probably crying her eyes out, now that she’s alone.” The view wavered as Conley shook his head. “She was barely holding it in when we got to her room. I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I did my security sweep as quickly as possible, then cleared out.”
“She’s a tough kid,” Barber said. “But there’s no excuse for that boy to be so rude to her.”
Even though I never knew about this conversation, I felt sure I knew who they were talking about. When I was thirteen, I’d gathered all my courage and told a seventeen-year-old boy that I loved him. He laughed at me. But that memory wasn’t what I needed, either.
I grabbed a fourth.
Conley and Barber standing watch outside a friend’s house while I attended a sleepover.
A fifth.
Watching me ride my bike.
A sixth.
Watching me sit alone in our backyard, making a daisy chain.
I pawed through memory after memory looking for something, anything, that might help me get through to Conley. At first, I held the memories in both hands and dove into them. But that took too long, so I began scooping them up in one hand, taking a quick peek, and then tossing them aside.
Watching me sit alone at a local dance.
Helping me with homework.
Discussing me with my parents.
Security reports to Granddaddy.
Watching my sibs and me pick wild strawberries.
Making the nighttime security rounds at the house.
Wait!
Strawberries!
That was an old code word. One that told Conley and Barber I was okay. Maybe I could use that memory to send my message to Conley. I lunged after it, grabbed the wrong one, and then found the strawberry memory. Holding it tightly, I waded through the memories piled up around the shadowy figure of Conley.
Thick, oppressive grief made for slow going, but I pushed my way through it and the memories surrounding Conley’s mental image of himself. He held one in his hands, and I felt waves of anger and sorrow radiating from him.
I only discovered what he was holding when I tried taking it from him. It was him watching me disappear into the maintenance tunnels after Sofia returned from watching the first pirate captain kill herself, and I’d come back to the suite to console her. That was the last time Conley saw me. Worse, he thought he’d never see me again.
It was time to show him he was wrong. I kicked that memory away and shoved the strawberry picking one into his hands. Conley dropped the strawberries and reached for the one I’d just knocked from his hands. I caught the strawberries and shoved it back in his hands. He dropped it. I put it back.
Drop.
Put back.
Drop.
Put back.
Drop.
Desperate to get through to Conley, I issued emotional orders. You must feel hope! You must not grieve! Be happy! Be hopeful! Because I’m alive!
Then I shoved the strawberry picking memory into his hands again. Conley didn’t immediately drop it, so that was progress. He sat there, examining it. I got the idea he was trying to figure out why that one kept coming to mind.
Come on, Conley, you can figure it out! Be hopeful! Don’t grieve! Strawberries, Conley. My old code word. God, please help him remember! Strawberries mean safety! Strawberries mean life!
With a suddenness that left me disoriented, the oppressive darkness vanished, washed away by the bright light of hope. Conley’s mental image of himself stood and… Oh. My. God. He danced. Hugging the strawberry picking memory, Conley spun and leapt and pranced. Joy radiated from him.
Part of me wanted to stay and watch Conley’s mental dance, but that would be foolish. I quietly withdrew from his mind and returned to mine.
Blinking, I sat up. Sofia turned a questioning expression my way.
I nodded. “I got through to Conley. I think.”
Sofia smiled and then held a hand to the ear with the comm. “He just told Barber that you were alive. So you definitely got through.”
“Did I miss anything while I was away?”
Sofia’s smile faded. “Rivera made a ship-wide announcement telling her crew the Pegasus was about to enter a wormhole.”
I shrugged. “We knew they were going to make a wormhole jump sometime.”
“I know, but that’s not all, Nora. Rivera said it was their third wormhole transition. And—”
“Third? When were the other two?”
“It’s just a guess, but they probably happened while we were sleeping outside on the hull. But that’s not all, Nora.”
I felt my gut tighten at Sofia’s tone of voice. “What else did Rivera say?”
“She told the crew to prepare for arrival at their base.”
Sofia’s words stunned me so much, I asked, “Arrival at the pirate base? Isn’t it too soon for that?”
Sofia shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on which wormholes Rivera took the Pegasus through. Maybe Rivera knows some that aren’t on the regular charts. Or the base might be in a star system so dead it’s the perfect hiding place for a pirate base. It wouldn’t be the first time pirates set up shop so close to major shipping lanes.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wow, it looks like Connaught Starlines’ training is more thorough than I thought.”
Sofia’s cheeks reddened for a second. “I didn’t learn all that in training.”
“Do tell?”
“A boy joined the crew the same time I did, only he was a temp working for his passage to the Scout Academy on Draconis. We hit it off, and he told me all sorts of stories about space exploration, famous Scouts, and the Scout Corps battles with pirates. Then we reached Draconis, and he left to attend the Academy.”
“Do you still miss him?”
“A little, at first. He left six months ago.” Sofia paused, then asked, “I wonder if he still thinks of me?”
“He definitely will when he finds out you took down a pirate gang while he was still at the Academy!” I rolled off the bed and changed the subject. “And on that note, we need to get moving.”
Sofia stood. “Moving where?”
“Back to the lifepod launch bay. I think it’s the safest hiding place available to us.”
“Is it worth the risk of going back through the maintenance tunnels?”
“I’m hoping Rivera pulled her people out of the tunnels to help prepare for arrival. Hang on while I check.”
I closed my eyes, lowered my mental shield, and let the emotional map of the Pegasus form. The bright red that represented all the passengers pounded against my mind. No doubt, their panic flared up at Rivera’s announcement. Frightening as their captivity aboard the Pegasus was, the pirate base was a terrifying unknown to them. Just two days ago, their vortex of fear would have battered my mind, sucked me beneath its roiling surface, and destroyed my sanity. Even now, it took almost all my concentration to keep it at bay. That meant I only had time for a quick look around the rest of the ship.
Maroon blobs representing pirates moved in the tunnels. But were they still following a search pattern, or were they retreating from the tunnels? I forced myself to stand against the emotional pounding from the passengers, did my best to ignore the headache it induced, and watched the pirates. It felt as if it took ages for me to figure out that the pirates were retreating from the tunnels. Then I reformed my mental shield and breathed a sigh of relief as my wall held against the passengers’ emotional assault.
I opened my eyes and found Sofia before me. She offered a cup of water and two pills. “Take these. They’ll help with the pain.”
I accepted both, but asked, “What makes you think I’m in pain?”
“Your face went pale right after you closed your eyes. I got these from the suite’s bathroom just in case you needed them.”
The pills went down easily, and the water felt cool when it hit my stomach. “Thank you, Sofia.”
“Don’t mention it.” She glanced at the corner that had the hidden door into the tunnels. “Is the way clear?”
I nodded. “At least until we reach the long corridor that connects crew quarters and passenger territory. I’ll need to do another emotional scan when we get there.”
I went to the hidden door, glanced back at Sofia, and asked, “Are you ready?”
She stretched her back, something she wouldn’t be free to do in the tunnels, and said, “Let’s go.”
I put my eye to the disguised retina reader, and the door popped open with a soft click. We entered. I carefully closed the door behind us, then we started our crouching walk to the other end of the Pegasus.
We stopped four times so I could do an emotional scan of the ship. By the fourth scan, the only pirates left in the tunnels were the ones working in the engine room, and they weren’t moving much. We made it back to the same tunnel exit we’d used before. Only a dozen meters of corridor and the hatch stood between us and the relative safety of the empty launch bay.
“Let me scan the corridor,” I said. “Be ready to move the second I give the signal.”
“I’m ready, Nora.”
I closed my eyes and lowered my shield. The storm of passenger emotions still raged and pounded on my mind. But the headache it created was nothing compared to the pit that formed in my stomach when I checked the corridor. Dozens of maroon blobs moved purposefully through it, blocking our path to the empty launch bay.
MASSIVE DECOMPRESSION
I wanted to drop my mental map and put my whiteout wall between me and the dark storm of fear raging inside the dining hall. But I couldn’t do that. Not with dozens of pirates just beyond the maintenance tunnel door in front of us. I opened my eyes and looked at Sofia.
