The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,118
a clear, shiny substance coated it, extending an inch or two beyond the bandage and holding it in place.
Very cool. All of it.
Taelon looked at Sodu. “Give him silna to speed his healing.”
Sodu nodded, withdrew a handgun-shaped tool, and pressed the barrel to Yihrus’s neck. It made a psst sound. Then Sodu tucked it away once more.
Taelon turned toward Lisa.
“Will he be okay?” she asked.
He nodded and closed the distance between them.
“Are you okay?” She had been so rattled that she hadn’t asked earlier.
Wrapping his arms around her, he pressed his forehead to hers. “As long as you and Abby are okay, I’m okay.”
Twenty-four hours later, Lisa settled a slumbering Abby in the center of a sizable bed. She’d seen pictures of private airplanes that boasted bedrooms but hadn’t expected to find one in the transport just on the other side of the infirmary.
Royals in space really traveled in style, even for short distances.
After piling pillows around Abby to keep her from rolling off, Lisa made her way through the empty infirmary and joined the men.
All were seated on the L-shaped sofa and murmured to each other while they stared at the shiny table that also functioned as a large viewscreen. Yihrus was up and moving around. His arm was in a sling and his movements a little stiff, but his face projected no pain.
If the Yona didn’t feel emotion, did they feel pain?
There was still so much Lisa didn’t know about this new world she’d entered.
Taelon glanced up at her approach. “Is Abby asleep?”
She nodded.
Ari’k rose and stepped aside so she could sit beside Taelon.
“So?” she asked, taking in their grim expressions. “What’s our situation?”
Taelon sighed. “Our long-range comms have been severely damaged. Sodu is trying to repair them, but it isn’t going well. We’ve tried hailing the Kandovar with proximal comms and have had no success.” He glanced at the others. “We’ve concluded that the ship was most likely destroyed.”
“Oh no,” she murmured. All those people.
“Considering the damage the Gathendiens inflicted before we left the qhov’rum, I’m sure there were casualties,” Taelon continued, either hearing or guessing her thoughts. “But the Kandovar was equipped with enough escape pods to evacuate every person on board, so some should have survived.”
Eliana had mentioned getting the other Earth women into pods. Had they launched only to be destroyed by the Gathendien craft? Or had they escaped? Were they safe? Lost? Scared?
Lisa had Taelon and the Yona with her to ease her fears. Anyone else who escaped had only the solitude of the pods. “Do you think there could be survivors nearby?”
“Improbable,” Ari’k replied. “The qhov’rum allows us to travel at such speeds that they are likely scattered over many sectors of space.”
“Shit.”
Taelon nodded. “We’re light-years away from Lasara. But we agree that reentering the qhov’rum would be unwise.”
“Why? Do you think the Gathendiens might be in there, lying in wait for us?”
“No. The qhov’rum was constructed by the Sectas. It is less like the wormhole you described to me that bends space to make the distance you travel shorter, and more like a…” He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I can think of nothing comparable on your planet. A magnetic levitation train combined with a gravitationally propelled roller coaster?”
She stared at him blankly.
“It doesn’t fold space and burrow through it like a worm so much as it provides a safe path—undisturbed by planetary orbits, asteroids, space debris, or the like—through many, many sectors of space while it propels us forward at speeds our engines could never reach even with modifications.”
She considered it. “So it’s like a freeway encased in a tunnel that makes you shoot forward like a roller coaster?”
“Yes. With no traffic or hazards. Ordinarily. This is the first instance we are aware of in which a ship has been attacked by another that entered the qhov’rum behind it. The qhov’rum only has one entrance and one exit. We all believe the transport and escape pods bursting through the exterior walls have likely destabilized it.”
Well, crap.
Ari’k motioned to the table viewscreen. “I have determined our location. We are here.”
Taelon pointed to a speck of a planet close to their position. “Our allies the Segonians have a base here on Mila 9. But unless Sodu is able to repair comms and summon aid, it will take us four and a half months to reach it.”
That was a long damn time. “Do we have the supplies we need to get us there?”