Chapter 49 It's not nice to spy.
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"I want to know the instant there is any, and I mean any, change from that room. I don't have time to stay down here, or I would understand." Once the Captain found him, he gave him his orders.
"I'll tell you if anything changes as soon as I notice it. But I would like to move them both to another medical bay. The power has become unreliable in this one."
"Do what you think is best, Doctor. Just try to keep her here. If she leaves, notify me immediately."
"Yes, sir."
"Captain, we have an emergency distress signal from the Salmez."
"Put it through, officer." Vapade signaled with his right hand to put the transmission up on the main viewer. The tech nodded and seconds later a very distorted image appeared.
"This is captain Tistrak of the Salmez. The Ganthoris is gone. We had nothing to withstand the trap they sprung. My ship is at under half power, ventral stabilization gone. We've continued a port spin we began before we jumped. Get everything clear of our flight path. I'm not even sure we'll be able to stay out of the planet's gravity, if we get back at all." The scene behind Tistrak was one of utter chaos. Consoles spat cascades of sparks across his bridge, bodies slumped where they had fallen, or were slumped at their stations. Black smoke obscured much of what Vapade could see.
"What happened to them?" His now second in command asked, more to himself than anyone in particular.
Vapade looked out one of the many bridge windows at the slice of space he knew the Nest rested in. Even though he couldn't see it from so great a distance, he knew it was there. What had that ship done to not one, but two of the mightiest ships his species had ever created?
With a curt nod, he left his second in command of the bridge, spun on his heals and stalked towards Thargoan's state room. Whether he liked it or not, that immature moron was loved by many of the crew members aboard the five remaining undamaged vessels in their fleet. He could not afford to disillusion them at this critical juncture. They needed to be united against this new threat. If it called for him to sacrifice some of his pride, so be it. He didn't get where he was by being stupid. He would swallow his pride for the good of his men. Thargoan would gloat as he always had. He was too sure of his own position, as always. But once they got this fleet home, and he gave Thargoan's sire his secret report, then things would change. Thargoan would never see it coming until it was too late. Besides, pride was such a small thing to hold onto when real power was so much more of an alluring goal.
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"We need to check his stitches." Tamar heard the words first, then their tone, almost pleading.
She had no idea how long she'd been asleep. Being where she was, she really didn't care how much time had passed, as long as she was where she was.
"I'm here to do his two hour check. Could I come in please?" There was that voice again.
Poking her head from under the thin sheet, all she could see was black, jet black. Then her memory began to work again. She'd sealed the room the only way she could think of, with darkness. Tamar had pulled all the blackness from her past and gave it physical form. It had come to her as naturally as taking her next breath.
"You need to bring the barrier down so that nurse Aslet can make sure how Malachi is doing." A voice in her head had her sitting up, pulling the sheet along with her.
"But Mal's fine. If he wasn't, I'd know." She began to pull her head back under the sheet, then stopped.
"Who said that?" The darkness faded in an instant and she scanned the room for threats, knowing someone had just spoken to her from way too close.
"I can assure you, there is no one inside this room with us. I'm not in the room. I'm in your head."
Tamar slapped the side of her head.
"What do you mean, in my head? I've heard of people talking to themselves, but this, this is something else."
"Yeah, it took Malachi a few weeks to get used to having a partner in his head too, but you'll get used to it, he did."
"So this is who he's been talking to all this time. I knew he was talking to someone, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who." Tamar heard a slight toe tap at the door and turned. She bristled when she saw the nurse standing silhouetted in the light from outside the room.
"May I come in now?" The woman asked again.
"You make one wrong move and I will remove you from this room. I don't like people from your chosen profession, so be very careful." Tamar shifted back beneath the covers and waited. Hearing the woman approach, she snuggled closer to Mal.
"Central, could you bring up the lights? I can't see a thing in here?" The nurse's melodious voice rubbed Tamar's nerves raw.
"NO! The lights stay where they are. We heal better in the dark." She spat from under the sheet.
"But I can't see a thing. How am I supposed to do my checks?"
"That is not our problem. We don't want you here to begin with. We are healing just fine. There is no need for this check, so you can just leave. Thank you very much."
"I wish that were so, but this check is required. We have to make sure he's not developing any kind of infection in the areas we had to operate on. Whatever hit him came close to cutting him in half. A single infection could kill him if not caught in time. Are you so sure that he's fine that you'd risk it?" Tamar gritted her teeth. She hated when people were right, especially when those people were doctors or nurses.
"Fine," she snarled. The lights came up very, very slowly, but not to their full illumination.
"That's as much as you get. Is that enough?"
"That's fine. I'll just do the check and be out of here. I don't wish to disturb you." The nurse began to tug at the sheet, trying to move it as little as she had to do the check. Tamar's impatience grew with each passing second until she ripped the sheet off the bed, exposing both her and Malachi.
The gasp she heard from the nurse raised her hackles. It shouldn't have, but it did. Tamar, throughout her entire life, had people gasp in shook at her appearance, but this time, with everything she'd just been through, she had it.
"Go ahead, take a good look at the cat girl. Yeah, I look like a huge cat," she spun on the bed and stood. "So go ahead and gawk!" She yelled.
When nothing happened, she looked down to see the nurse wasn't paying any attention to her. Her gaze was locked on Malachi.
"What is that?" Through trembling lips she asked, her wavering finger pointed towards Malachi's side.
Bending over to see, Tamar watched as Malachi's suit busied itself repairing his many injuries. It wove through the wound, carrying away small bits of dead or dying tissue while making sure oxygen and nutrient rich blood was carried to where it would do the most good. Looking up, she noticed the nurse had gone deathly pale. It took her a few seconds to realize why.
"Wha, wha, what is that thing?" She asked, looking like she wanted to vomit.
"That's Mal's suit. They told you what to expect before they sent you in here, didn't they?" Tamar asked while jumping to the floor without a sound.
"They told me to be careful not to disturb you, but they didn't say anything about him." The nurse answered, not taking her eyes off Malachi.
"Do your checks. He won't bite you. His suit is just helping him heal." Tamar told her as she walked around the bed. The poor girl nearly hit the ceiling when Tamar laid her hand lightly on her arm.
For the first time, the girl looked up from Malachi and to Tamar. There was no horror, no revulsion, much to Tamar's relief. All she saw was a look of wonder.
"Wow, they said you looked like a cat, but they didn't tell me how much." Tamar watched her lean to her right, then straighten far quicker.
"No, I don't have a tail. I don't have long pointy ears either. Kinda hard to blend in with a tail. But I do have the hair and the eyes." She batted her long lashes at the young woman, then turned back to Mal. "How is he?"
"From what I can tell, he's doing fine. All I have to do is draw some blood for an infection check and we're done." The growl that she got in response froze her in place.
"Why do you need to draw his blood?" The words came from deep in Tamar's throat, full of menace and threat.
"We need his blood to make sure there is not infection, that's all."
"Are you sure of that? You wouldn't happen to have been sent in here by your captain to, let's say, get a blood sample so he can try to figure out what's wrong with him? To make sure I didn't do anything to him." Tamar watched the sweat form on the nurse's forehead, her hands trembling, and knew she'd struck the right cord.
"Are you going to kill me?" The nurse managed to ask.
"Kill you, no. There was a time, not that long ago, that I would have for something like this, but that was before I met him," she nodded down towards Malachi. "Let's just say I was informed the Captain was trying something like this. By the way, my names Tamar, what's yours?"
"Tammy, Tammy Jenkins, I'm a pharmacist mate third class." Tamar watched her shoulders slump in relaxation.
"That's why they sent you in here, wasn't it? You're on the low end of the totem pole, right?"
"That's it. No one wanted to come in here at all. There are a lot of rumors going around the ship about you right now."
"Oh, are they, any of them good?" Tamar sat on the bed, letting her legs dangle from the edge.
"It's all according to what you see as good. Some people are saying you have fangs and claws, that you eat people, some even are saying you have the strength of twenty grown men, that you tore through thirty guys at one time."
"It wasn't thirty, it was twenty five, and I did have some advantages at the time." Tammy looked over at Tamar and gulped.
"So you went up against one of our security details and won?"
Tamar opened her mouth wide, showing her rows of sharp teeth. With her mouth open, she lifted both hands and extended her claws.
"Does this answer at least one of your questions?" She asked.
"Clearly." Tammy squeaked, then looked over at Tamar sidelong.
"How did you know I'd been sent by the Captain? No one here knew what I was down here to do. So how did you?"
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