The Skypirate Part 35

His tone was so astonished she wanted to shake him. Then the absurdity of it hit her; he'd literally come back from the dead, and within minutes she wanted to shake him. Laughter welled up inside her and she surrendered to it helplessly.

"Is she all right?" the boy asked warily, staring at the woman who minutes ago had been weeping and was now laughing as if demented.

"I'm...not sure," Dax said. Then, with a ghost of his old grin, "But then I never am."

Califa managed to control herself, wiping at her eyes. Dax was serious now, as he lay looking up at her.

"How long was I...out?"

"I..." How long had he lain there, dead to anything in this world? She suppressed a shudder. "Five minutes? Perhaps ten," she amended. It seemed like forever, she thought.

"You've got to get out of here. They're liable to discover the tunnel..." He stopped, and turned his head toward the gaping hole as a gust of that breeze lilted his hair. "It...really worked, didn't it?"

Califa froze. "You weren't sure it would?"

"I knew it would, in theory, but...that many shots..."

"Tell me something, flashbow warrior," she said conversationally, "has anyone else ever fired nine bolts in succession and survived?"

He looked suddenly wary, and she knew her tone hadn't fooled him. His next words proved it. "I think I'm in trouble if I answer that."

"What's that noise?" The boy was c.o.c.king his head, listening. After a moment Califa heard it, too, an odd sort of sc.r.a.ping coming from the front of what was left of the bunker.

"They're digging!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," Dax said grimly. "Now will you get out of here?"

"You're right," she said, grabbing his shoulders as she got to her knees, "we'd better get moving."

"Califa"

"Maybe they'll be so occupied with getting in here they won't be watching the perimeter. We can"

"Califa, I'm not going anywhere."

She stared at him. "What?"

"I can't. I can hardly move."

"I know you're exhausted, but the shuttle's only a half mile away"

"It might as well be on Trios. I'd never make it. And if I try, you never would. Just give me the bow. If they make it in here, I'll slow them down a little."

Califa scrambled to her feet. Dax grunted when his head, abruptly deprived of the cushion of her thighs, thumped against the floor.

"You son of a Carelian slimehog! I didn't realize what was happening before, that youknew that many shots would kill you. Well, listen to this, my fine flashbow warrior. Committing suicide on your own is one thing, but if you think I'm going to knowinglyhelp you do it, you are demented!" Dax blinked. The boy backed up a step. "I went through your dying once, I'll be d.a.m.ned to Hades if I'll do it again. So you can just get yourself moving, oh infamous skypirate. And you'd better do it soon, or I'll toast your a.s.s with a disrupter for encouragement!"

There was a long, silent moment. Then, incredibly, Dax laughed. "You would, wouldn't you?"

"Push me to it," she offered, still glaring at him.

He looked suddenly thoughtful. "I suppose a comment along the lines of how incredible you are when you're furious would get me toasted that much sooner?"

Califa felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but ignored it. "That," she ground out, "I can promise you. Now are you moving, or do I have to"

Dax held up his hands in defeat. "I'll try," he said, although he sounded doubtful. Then he glanced around the small cell and grimaced. "Not my idea of a good place to die, anyway."

"Good. Now you" She looked at the boy and suddenly realized something. Her tone softer, she spoke again. "I'm sorry, we never even asked your name."

"It's Denpar. My friends...used to call me Den."

"Den," Califa repeated, nodding. She lifted the flash-bow from the floor. "Do you think you're up to carrying this through the tunnel?"

The boy's eyes lit up with an almost worshipful glow. "I'll do it. I'll carry it all the way, if you wish."

"You may have to," Califa said grimly as Dax battled to get to his feet.

He hadn't, Califa soon realized, been exaggerating much. Every move was an effort that made her weary just to watch. Yet somehow she sensed that only her continual badgering was keeping him going.

"So crawl," she snapped when he fell the first time in the tunnel. "You're too tall to walk through it anyway."

He crawled. And collapsed. And got back to his knees and crawled some more. And then went through it all again. She let him rest for a moment when they reached the outside. She couldn't resist the look of relief that spread across his face as he lay there, looking up at the night sky. Besides, she need to reconnoiter the area anyway. She headed silently toward the commotion coming from the other side of the hill. She was back in barely three minutes.

"Looks like every hand at the outpost is digging at that pile of rubble you left them. I think we'll be all right, but we've got to get moving."

Dax nodded. He'd quit talking a while ago, to conserve his breath, Califa thought.

"I should have arranged this sooner," she said, "You're a lot more cooperative this way."

As she'd expected, he grimaced at her, his lip curling sarcastically. But he moved. He made it to his feet again, but he was swaying dangerously. Califa quickly moved in to support him, and they started off, the boy following closely behind, cradling the silver bow in his arms as if it were the most precious of treasures. Which, since it had saved them, she supposed it was. But if they were spotted, the two disrupters would have to deal with it; she wasn't about to let Dax get his hands on that bow to fire that remaining bolt. She was too certain it would be the last. Forever. It was a long, torturous trek, the ground was uneven, tripping up the exhausted Dax at what seemed like every other step. Twice he gathered his breath to speak, and twice she silenced him before he could begin.

"Don't even think it, skypirate. I don't want n.o.bility from you, and I don't want sacrifice. I just want your feet moving."

She was rapidly becoming fatigued herself. Dax was a big man, and she was bearing a lot of his weight, although he tried hard to ease the load. The boy was beginning to waver, too; he'd been chained up a long time, and the flashbow was no slight weight for a thin, weakened boy.

Once Dax went down completely, a low groan her only warning. They were out of sight of the outpost, so she decided to take the risk of letting him rest for a few minutes. The boy sank wearily to the ground also, but he clung to his burden faithfully.

"We're close, Den," she a.s.sured him. "Not much longer."

He nodded, as if he, too, had adopted Dax's silence to save his breath. He was as tough as every other Triotian she'd met. She'd once thought peace brought softness, but these people were living proof otherwise. Perhaps, she thought, lifting her head to look at the stars, maintaining peace was even harder than fighting wars.

She wondered if Dax had been able to pick out the sparkling light that was Trios, when he'd first seen the sky again. She imagined that he had.

"Califa." She turned to look at him. "I don't think"

She cut him off. "Good. When you do think, you make a mess of it." This, of the man who, no matter what he said about her or Dare, had the best, most innovative tactical mind she'd ever known. She suppressed a smile. "If you've got enough breath to talk, then you've got enough to get moving. Up and walking, skypirate. You've got a job to finish."

He groaned, but he rolled to his knees. Den had to help her get him up this time, and their progress was even slower. But at last she saw the rocky outcropping that marked the cleft.

She pondered for a moment, then decided the benefit would be worth the risk and reached for the comlink on Dax's belt.

"Rina?"

"Califa? Thank G.o.d, I thought"

"I know. Get the shuttle fired up and ready. We're going to have to move fast, they may not be far behind us."

"Dax?" The girl's voice was shaky; she was obviously wondering why Califa was doing the talking, and fearing the worst.

"He's here. I'll explain later. Just get ready."

"Copy."

Rina was as good as her word. The shuttle was alive and ready, the side door open. Den had to help her again as she tried to lift Dax, who was barely conscious now, into the shuttle. Rina ran back to help, pulling as Califa pushed. His slack body sprawled on the floor, and Califa and the boy scrambled in after him. Califa at last relieved the boy of the burden of the bow, giving him an approving nod as he gratefully surrendered it.

"You're a true Triotian, Den. Quit isn't in your lexicon."

The boy smiled, then looked at Rina curiously. Rina returned the look, but only for an instant before she knelt beside Dax.

Califa put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I know, Rina, but there's nothing we can do for him now except get out of here."

"But, Dax"

"He's not injured. Not in any way we can help."

"Then what"

"I'll explain later. You have to help me fly us out of here."

Rina pulled herself together with a visible effort. She ran back to the console of the shuttle. Califa followed. It had been a long time since she'd flown one, but it would come back to her, she thought. Twenty minutes later she was grimacing wryly at her own arrogance; she'd never worked so hard in her life. And Dax had made it look so easy, responding with relaxed dexterity to Rina's warnings of a hillside here or an unexpected drop there. They were skating along barely twenty feet off the deck, following Rina's memory of the topography, unerring even in the dark. When Dax had brought Rina along, she'd wondered why; it wasn't like him to allow her into any kind of danger. But she'd been safe enough, sitting unnoticed in that cleft of ground. And the entire mission would have been impossible without her.

"Now," Rina said at last, when they were far on the other side of the planet. Califa gratefully turned to the relatively simple task of getting the shuttle back to theEvening Star. Rina wasted no time in getting to the question uppermost on her mind. "What happened to him?"

"The flashbow," Califa answered shortly. "Nine shots."

Rina gasped. "No one's ever fired that many!"

"So I gathered," Califa said dryly. She nodded her head toward the boy. "You can thank him for Dax's life. He's the one who knew to put the bow back in his hand."

Rina's eyes, so like Dax's, widened. "You mean the legend is true? That if you put the flashbow back...?"

"I only know what I saw." And the memory made her shiver.

Rina paled at Califa's expression. "He was... dead?"

"And then not. I can't explain it. The legend seems as good a way as any."

She tried to put impossible thingsand the legend was only one of themout of her mind and concentrate on getting them back. And Rina ran back to sit with the unconscious Dax.

"Welcome back, boy. Thought you were going to sleep away the entire trip."

Dax blinked, then focused on Roxton's grinning face.

"How...long?"

"Three days," the first mate said. "But from the look of you when they carried you off the shuttle, you needed every minute of it. Thought you'd gone and died on us."

Warily, Dax tried to sit up, and was gratified when it was easier than he expected. He felt almost functional again.

"I hear you had quite an adventure on Darvis."

"It's not one I'd care to repeat," he said, his tone very dry.

"But you got it done," Roxton said, with as much satisfaction as if the whole thing had been his idea. "And we'll be at Trios this time tomorrow."

Dax blinked. "We will?"

"Sure." The old man tugged at his beard, laughing, yet studying Dax with an intensity barely disguised by his humor. "We weren't about to say no when your Arellian started giving orders in that way of hers. She said set course for Trios, so we did."

There were three Arellians aboard now, but Dax knew quite well who Roxton was talking about. And he knew exactly what "way" of giving orders he was talking about as well. She virtually terrorized him into making that trip from the cell to the shuttle, that walking, living Hades he could barely remember now. But she'd been right. He'd made it, when he'd never expected to.

"Now that's a smile I've waited awhile to see," Roxton said softly.Flushing , Dax looked away from his old friend's grinning face. "She's quite a woman," Roxton said.

"Yes."

"The boyby the way, he's a distant relation of Fleuren's, we discoveredsaid she tricked the Outpost Commander into thinking she was one of them again, that she'd captured you to regain her Coalition honor and her position."

"She did. She had him eating out of her hand."

"You must have wondered"

"Only for a moment," Dax said, feeling somehow he owed her this declaration of his trust. "I should have trusted her before, and I didn't. I had to then." He sighed. "That doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"On the contrary," Roxton said with a chuckle, "it makes perfect sense. And it explains why she's been hovering over you like a mother whisperbird. I finally had to force her to rest."

"She...has?"

"Right after she ordered us to 'get this bucket to Trios,' I think were her words." The first mate laughed again at Dax's expression. Then he got to his feet. "So, rest up, eat something, and you'll be home before you know it."

He was at the door before it hit Dax.

"Home?"

Roxton turned, the knowledge showing in his gentle smile. "Home," he confirmed.

"You...know?"