Tabitha Chirrick - Overshadowed

“I’m not a Rokkir.” He turned from the door. A coal-like scab covered the hole in his shoulder where he’d torn the arrow out.

Tayel leaned forward. “How did—? How are you not still bleeding? You tore an arrow out of your shoulder!”

“Right,” Shy said. “And I don’t see a med kit or a cauterizer at your feet so—”

Fehn stepped off the wall. Shy drew an aether-tech magnum from the back of her belt and aimed it at his head.

He froze.

Jace squawked.

“Shy!” Tayel shouted.

Shy clicked off the safety, and a pattern of orange lines illuminated the dark alloy of the barrel. “I will shoot you if you do not give me answers.”

Fehn drew a staggered breath. Tayel flicked her gaze to where her mag baton sat a few feet away.

“You’d probably know more about this than me,” Fehn muttered.

“Explain,” Shy said.

“The Sinosian raiders did this to me, princess. Your father turned me into a…”

“A what?”

Tayel’s heart raced. The hold seemed smaller than before, and with every second the walls felt like they were closing in around her.

“A what?” Shy demanded.

“I guess some kind of test subject,” Fehn said.

“You guess? ”

“I was taken to Sinos. I met with the raider king—”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“Fehn, I swear to—”

“It has nothing to do with this! I didn’t make it out of the throne room, okay? One moment I was talking with your father and the next, I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was in a dark lab, and I was in pain. The worst pain I’ve ever…” His chest expanded and collapsed. “I don’t know how long they held me captive. Each time I woke up it was worse. They stuck thousands of needles in me. They wove tubes through my skin.”

Tayel chewed her lip, the images unpleasant.

“The last time I came to, it was with this.” He lifted his cyonic arm. “And guess what? Your brother set me free.”

Shy’s eyes narrowed. “Locke?”

“Yeah, said he was the king’s son and wouldn’t let whatever happened go unpunished. Gave me a contact on Sinos before he ran off.”

“What was the contact’s name?”

“Why the hell would I remember that now?”

“Because it will save a bullet from exploding your thick skull.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She gripped the weapon with her second hand to hold it steady. Tayel’s gut did a flip.

Fehn growled. “Ritah? Rickta? Ricker?”

“Last name,” Shy said.

“Fragging hell. Orta? Ortigo? Something like that. Get that gun out of my face.”

Shy lowered the weapon.

Tayel breathed out.

“Rikter Ortega,” Shy said. “One of Locke’s fieldsmen. He was right; Rikter could have smuggled you off base and off planet with far few errors than you made getting out.”

“Good for him. And nice to know how you treat the people who save your ass. And you.” He glared into Tayel’s eyes. “Thanks for your help.”

Tayel frowned. “I—”

“Hey! You would do the exact same thing in our position,” Shy spat. “After seeing what we did in that castle you’re lucky we don’t kill you just in case.”

He crossed his arms.

“And you could have told us about this a long time ago,” she added. “Could have saved you the trouble.”

“Like you told us about being raider royalty?” he countered.

Tayel had seen enough arguments to know this wasn’t going anywhere.

“Fight’s over guys,” she said. “If Fehn was a Rokkir or working with the Rokkir, he would have done us in a long time ago. Just drop it. He saved my life — all of our lives.”

For a beat, no one moved, and Tayel suspected she’d have to pick up the mag baton before anyone took her seriously. But then Shy mag-clipped the magnum back to her belt, and Fehn leaned against the door. Without the whirring aether-tech gun, they were left with just the sound of the engine again, thrumming on like it had never been interrupted.

“So your cyonic,” Jace said, “It lets you wield dark aether? That’s it?”

“Isn’t that enough?” Fehn asked.

“Well, if you pulled an arrow out of your shoulder and didn’t bleed out, we’ll have to assume it gives you superior healing ability as well. That scab solidified a lot darker than human blood for sure.”

“I don’t pretend to know the specifics of what the Sinosian raiders did to me.” Fehn looked pointedly at Shy. “I wasn’t exactly a volunteer.”

“But Rokkir wield the dark aether, not raiders,” Tayel said. “It doesn’t make sense that they’re the ones who built it.”

Shy made a pained expression. “Actually, it might. The Rokkir are clearly working with my father, so our organization having access to dark aether is reasonable. What I don’t understand is why they’d build a cyonic that wields dark aether. And why would they install it in Fehn? Raider troops in Rokkir armies don’t use the stuff, right?” She met Tayel’s eyes.

“No,” Tayel said.

“It’s powerful,” said Jace. “Maybe your father was trying to make soldiers to fight back and protect his people.”

“Or maybe he was doing research for the Rokkir,” Fehn said.

“Listen,” Shy said. “You’re right. And I can’t apologize for what — for what you say we did to you.”

“Nice,” he muttered.

“But for what it’s worth, I agree with my brother. What’s been done to you is horrible, and if my father is responsible as you say, we’ll find some way to make it right.”

“That’s cute, but I’m not going to find justice in your organization. Raiders are the ones working with the Rokkir.”

“My father is the one working with the Rokkir. Not all of us — not voluntarily. The people who side with the Rokkir are being indoctrinated. Tayel, tell him.”

Shy’d turned over a new leaf, calling on Tayel for all this verbal backup, but Tayel didn’t know why the raiders worked with Rokkir. Unless… She remembered the refugees. The way they marched. The way they responded to orders.

“You think whatever they did to those refugees, they did to the raiders, too?” she asked.

“Yes. I think my father made some agreement with them — sold our men off in return for something. I will get to the bottom of it, and I will end it. Fehn.” Shy stared at him, her eyes softer than Tayel had ever seen them. “My people are not agreeing to this. I want answers, too.”

“It’s all true, Fehn,” Jace said. “I saw the Rokkir turn helpless refugees into obedient soldiers. Servants, at the very least.”

Fehn’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t want whatever justice you have in mind, princess . I don’t want money or revenge or raider slaves or anything.”

“Well what do you want?” Shy asked.

“For this invasion of my privacy to end.”

Tayel grimaced. She lowered her head. Maybe they’d dug a little too deep.

Shy shrugged. “Fine. Since we’re done, you should all get some rest. There are two small rooms in back if any of you care for cots over steel floors.”

She turned on her heels and marched toward the cockpit without another word. Fehn stomped the opposite direction, toward the rooms she’d indicated, and that left Tayel alone with Jace and a bad taste in her mouth.

“Do you think we pushed him too hard?” she asked.

“Shy shouldn’t have pulled a gun on him,” Jace whispered. “And he obviously didn’t want us knowing this.”

“But it was safer to ask, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure.”

She sighed. “I guess someone should check on him.”

“What? Do you think that’s a good idea?”