No Such Thing Read online

  No Such Thing

  By

  Michelle O’Leary

  © Copyright 2013 Michelle O’Leary

  All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  Author's Homepage, Fertile Ground: http://www.michelle-oleary.com

  Cover photo courtesy of NASA

  * * *

  Prologue

  "Mem Soliere, we must have her under control."

  Ryelle stared at the Director of the Telenetic Institute and gripped her mother’s hand tighter. To her young eyes, he seemed impossibly old, with gray streaking his hair and stern lines framing his unsmiling mouth. But his murky eyes were alive and seething with things she didn’t understand, things that made primitive fear crawl up her spine. He didn’t look at her, but she still felt his regard like ice on her skin.

  In contrast, her mother was a beacon of warmth and strength. Aceline Soliere stared at the Director, slim back straight, chin up, dark eyes snapping with anger and resolve. "She is not yours to control. You are here to train her in the use of her telenetic abilities, not enslave her with some cruel contraption."

  "You are being melodramatic, Mem Soliere. No one wants to enslave your daughter, but her telenetic ability continues to grow and the danger she poses to herself and everyone around her grows with it. Do you not recall her catastrophic introduction to the Institute? She destroyed every building on the campus, injured numerous people, and very nearly killed several—"

  "She was five years old. She had never been apart from me and she was terrified. You separated us and treated her like a lab rat. What did you expect?"

  "Most telenetic children are separated from their families at first—"

  "Just because it is common practice doesn’t make it right. The courts agreed with me, which is why you’ve been burdened with me these past seven years."

  Ryelle didn’t understand the hard and bitter edge to her mother’s voice and studied her grim features with a knot of sick tension in her belly.

  "You’re not a burden. You’ve been most welcome as an invaluable assistant in training Ryelle and on your own merit as well. But you must see how dangerous it has become for her to be without any kind of controls in place."

  "She controls herself just fine. She doesn’t need some horrible pain inducer to—"

  "There have been numerous incidents over the years, destructive and costly. The most recent incident injured her trainer quite badly."

  "That was an accident."

  "An accident that was almost fatal. How many injuries will it take for you to see reason? How many deaths?"

  Aceline stiffened, her grip tightening to the point of pain. Ryelle went still, fear causing the hair to stand up on her arms. The Director had a point. She was dangerous. Her telenetic ability was monstrous and sometimes uncontrollable. She hadn’t meant to hurt her trainer and felt sick about it, but it had happened anyway. Even now, her power unraveled around her in an invisible wave, fear loosening her hold on it. The furniture shivered, the items on the Director’s desk vibrating a low and menacing warning. Her mother had never faltered in her belief that Ryelle would learn to use and moderate her talent like she’d learned to use any other appendage. But now, with the Director’s words thickening like poison in the air, would she change her mind?

  Aceline took a deep breath. Then another. She didn’t seem to notice the items dancing on the Director’s desk. When she spoke, her voice was crisp and final. "While I am her guardian, she will never wear that vile piece of torture you like to call a training tool. The courts have given me full access and final say to what happens with my daughter, and I’m telling you right now, if I hear one more word about pain inducers, we walk. I will take Ryelle far away from here and to hell with your Institute." She surged to her feet, tugging Ryelle upright. Giddy with a glorious burst of relief, Ryelle nearly staggered. She wanted to cry out to her mother, Yes! Let’s leave now! Let’s go far, far away…

  "Mem Soliere, please," the Director said with utter calm and scary eyes, holding up a hand to forestall their departure. "Let’s not be hasty. Had I known you felt this adamantly against the training method, I would never have distressed you with it. Please, sit. I understand a mother’s need to protect her child. Taking her far away may indeed reduce the risk to those around her, but might put you both in even greater peril. News of the GenTec’s encroachment into our space grows more distressing by the day."

  Aceline stared at him for a moment, her face still. Then, to Ryelle’s dismay, she slowly eased back down to perch at the chair’s edge.

  "Mom," Ryelle whispered through stiff lips. She wanted to scream, Don’t trust him! Can’t you see his eyes? But she had no voice.

  Aceline’s gaze turned to her, warming into such boundless love and reassurance that Ryelle felt her chest ease and muscles relax. When Aceline patted her hand and tipped her graceful head at the spot next to her, Ryelle sat without further hesitation. Her mother would know what to do. She always did.

  Aceline faced the Director again. "You know Ryelle is more than capable of protecting herself. That’s why you want her—to be your shield against the GenTec."

  "Without proper training, she may not be able to shield even herself. But she has enormous potential. She could save so many lives in this war. Isn’t that worth the minor aggravation of staying with us?" He smiled with a gentle warmth that didn’t reach his eyes.

  "It’s not worth my daughter’s pain and suffering."

  His smile faded into something similar to shock. "Of course not. If you are referring to the pain inducer, please consider that matter closed. You still seem distressed—will you have some hot tea? I find it helps to soothe the frayed edges of the day." He rose and stepped over to a small counter, gathering a little tea pot and cups onto a tray. "Perhaps we may discuss alternative avenues of harnessing your daughter’s amazing talents."

  Aceline watched him, a crease between her brows. Ryelle didn’t like the silky tone of his voice either, but she could find no reason to protest. When he returned to the desk and served out measures of hot liquid into three cups, she minded her manners and thanked him as graciously as she could.

  Sitting behind the desk again, the Director cradled his cup and leaned back in his chair, smiling blandly at them as he expounded on the different training techniques used with other telenetics her age. Ryelle sipped politely at her tea but couldn’t understand what they were still doing there. Why couldn’t the man get to the point? Why didn’t her mother just get up and go? Why did adults have to talk everything to death? As far as she was concerned, the reason for the meeting was over—her mother had won and she wouldn’t be wearing that horrible headdress. So why—?

  A sharp movement caught her attention. She looked over in time to see her mother toss the teacup violently away. At first, Ryelle thought it was on purpose and gaped at the rudeness. But then Aceline jerked in her chair, body arching in a bow, head flinging back while her eyes bugged in their sockets.

  "Mom!" Ryelle cried, catching hold of her mother’s arm. It twitched and squirmed in her grip with a gruesome sort of animation, but she didn’t let go. "Mama, what’s wrong?" She heard the Director calling for medical care, his voice urgent and steady, and felt a small spark of relief in a sea of horror. Something was very, very wrong with her mama, but they would fix it. Someone would fix it.

  "Mama," she sobbed, still holding on as her mother convulsed out of the chair and onto the floor. Ryelle knelt next to her and Aceline’s eyes met hers, wild and fierce, her throat working as if she would speak, but the only sounds she
made were awful gurglings and retching gasps. "Help her, help her," Ryelle moaned, rocking over her mother and hugging her arm to her chest while her tears blurred her vision. Her world rocked around her, thrown into chaos by the loss of the only secure thing in her life.

  "Ryelle! Stop!" someone shouted, but she didn’t understand, moaning in abject terror as her mother’s eyes rolled back in her head. Then an explosion of pain cracked across her cheek, rocking her on her knees. She gasped, feeling the heat and sting in her skin. Lifting her head, she stared at the Director and realized with numb shock that he’d struck her. No one but her mother had come within touching distance of her since she’d demolished the Institute, and now her first contact from another person was a slap across the face.

  The Director’s face was grim and hard, eyes bright with something she couldn’t understand. Triumph? Pleasure? Paper fluttered between them, catching her eye, and Ryelle saw for the first time the cyclone of objects strewn around her, the shattered furniture, the cracks in the walls. Oh, no. What have I done?

  "Ryelle, you must let the medical team help your mother."

  They were standing in the doorway, staring at her with wide eyes and pale faces.

  "Please," she whispered to them. "Please. Help her. There’s something very wrong…" The arm she clutched to her chest went limp. Her mother’s eyes had closed and her face was slack. Ryelle moaned in helpless horror.

  "Stand back, Ryelle. Let them through."

  Chapter 1

  Five Years Later

  Declan gritted his teeth and willed his fingers steady as he separated the delicate filaments and tried to apply the splicer again. It slipped again. He hissed a curse, shifting in the confining space of the service shaft and working to get a better angle. Whoever designed this ship must have thought midget monkeys would service it. Why else would they make the shafts so narrow and put the service panels in such awkward places?

  He wiped his forehead and replaced sweat with slimy conductor fluid without noticing, steeling himself for another try. Working his hands into the narrow space and bracing the splicer against the edge of the panel, he held his breath and tried again. This time, the delicate filaments parted and then fused according to plan, until remote voices impinged on his concentration.

  The splicer stuttered in his hold.

  Declan muttered the same curse but without as much heat. With more speed than grace, he replaced the service panel and shoved his tools into their case, straining to hear the conversation echoing into the shaft. He recognized the voices but couldn’t catch the words over the sound of the engines. With a grimace of frustration, he squirmed backwards along the shaft, heading for freedom.

  The Chief Engineer was gone by the time he emerged and Declan thought that he’d missed Bagera, too. Then he saw the sailor twisting up under the proton stream to check the intake valves again. The man complained endlessly about the quality of those valves, but Declan knew he just liked the rush of energy pulsing off the clear stream tubes.

  "Hey, Bags!" he called over the deep-throated hum of the engines in the cavernous area below them.

  The man jerked, banging his head, then straightened with a scowl on his beefy, red face. "What you tryin’ to do, kill me?"

  Declan grinned, unrepentant. "So? You were there, right? You saw the new telenetic?"

  "Yeah, I saw the netter," Bags muttered, eyeing Declan balefully as he rubbed the sore spot on his stubbled scalp with blunt fingers.

  "So hack it up already!" Declan gave the older man a punch to the shoulder that made Bags wince. "What was he like?"

  "Sarkin’ rockhead! Ain’t gettin’ squat, you keep punchin’ me up." Then Bags ran a thoughtful gaze over Declan’s broad shoulders. "Hey, you filled out since I metcha, Dec. Not so much like that snot-nosed, braincase kid came on board few months ago." The sailor gave him a sly grin.

  Declan rolled his eyes, having heard roughly a million times Bags’ repertoire of insults and snide remarks about his age. "Stop stalling or I’ll give you a real punch, old-timer."

  Bags scowled again and rubbed his shoulder, but he stopped stalling. "Ain’t a he," he grumbled.

  "The telenetic’s a woman? What’d she look like?"

  Bags snorted. "Not no woman neither, though she’s a sweet-lookin’ little thing."

  Declan frowned in confusion. "What do you mean, she’s not a woman?"

  "Netter’s a girl," Bags explained with an irritable grimace as he moved across the engine room. "Younger’n you I ‘spect. Pretty as a picture with a powerhouse body, but fwhee," he whistled through his teeth with a shake of his head. "Colder’n the black heart a’space. Freeze yer dick off just lookin’ at ‘er."

  Unable to resist the opening, Declan said with a cheerful grin, "Not that you could get it up anyway, old guy like you."

  Bags, who was only ten years Declan’s senior and considered himself a dedicated love machine, gave the younger man a hostile look over his shoulder. "Go bugger y’self."

  Declan snickered, but refused to be sidetracked from his curiosity. "Why did the Institute send out a trainee?"

  Bags’ hands became surprisingly fluid as he ran them over a control panel, making minute adjustments to the engine’s specifications. "Beats me. Figured the Commander’d be steamed to get a greenie, but he didn’t look it. Wouldn’t wanna be in his shoes, though, handlin’ that little ice nebula."

  "But the Odyssey is the flagship of the fleet."

  Bags gave him a disgusted look. "Thanks for the update, kid."

  "I mean…Commander Task would want the best the Institute could send, right? This is no ship for a trainee. We need a telenetic who won’t drop the ball and get us all killed."

  Bags shrugged. "No sense worryin’ about somethin’ you can’t change. How’d the reroute go?"

  "Crappy as ever," Declan muttered, still mulling over the new arrival. "Maybe she’s just filling in until we get somebody more experienced. I heard they’re getting spread pretty thin these days."

  Bags snorted. "Don’t need no netters struttin’ our decks like they own her. We got on just fine last couple months without any a’ those snooty bastards."

  "That’s just because we haven’t been in the heat of it. But we’re headed for Mirabella where fighting’s thickest." He paused, watching the fluid, golden light of the proton stream ripple out over the cavernous room below. The thought of going into real battle was as intriguing as it was terrifying. He wondered what would be asked of him. He wondered if he would fail. He was the youngest person to ever be accepted on the crew of the Odyssey, the majestic supership of the fleet. His aptitude for all things mechanical had been his ticket onto the ship, but what did he know about war? And if he’d never seen real battle, how could a telenetic who was even younger be experienced enough to protect and defend them?

  Trying to distract himself from his increasing anxiety, he asked, "So what does she look like?"

  "Like they all look, pampered and primpy and nose so high in the air she was knockin’ holes in the ceiling." Bags turned to lean against the wall, a brooding look on his rough features as he stared into the proton streams. "Weird thing, though. She was wearin’ this hair net that was more’n just a frilly."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, it was sparkly enough, but I’m a sarkin’ engineer—I know hardware when I see it. No band with a focus crystal like they wear, neither."

  "What kind of hardware?"

  Bags rubbed his cheek thoughtfully, his blunt fingers making a rasping sound as they passed over stubbled skin. "Dunno. Hafta get a closer eyeball."

  Declan made a frustrated sound in his throat. "What kind of telenetic goes out in the field without a focus band?"

  Bags shrugged, turning to watch the displays with a critical eye. "That reroute good enough to go on line?"

  Sighing, Declan hefted his tool case and headed back for the shaft. "Let me just clean it up. I’ll holler when it’s clear."

  Bags grunted in reply, and with a gri
m clench of his jaw, Declan shoved his case ahead of him into the service shaft. If only he could trust the autobots with this kind of job, but Bags and he were alike in that respect—never trust a bot to do what could be done with his own hand. That way he knew it was done right. Shimmying into the shaft, he elbow-crawled toward the offending service panel, thoughts still fixed on the arriving telenetic.

  Bags hadn’t really answered his question and curiosity was eating at him. He’d never seen a telenetic in person. Did they really look like they did on the newsblips—remote, mysterious, and beautiful? He knew their beauty was due more to their rarity than physical loveliness, but a plain face didn’t lessen their impact. They all seemed to move with a suggestion of power, an aura of energy and confidence that was magnetic.

  Fumbling with the panel cover, Declan focused on the one piece of information that he’d purposefully ignored while he was with Bags. A girl. They wouldn’t have sent a child, so she had to be close to his age. His heart did a queer little sidestep in his chest at the thought. Being accepted on board as crew of the Odyssey might be an amazing boost for his career, but all the women on board treated him like their long-lost kid brother. He’d been working half-heartedly on a crush for one of the gunners, but the idea of a female telenetic his age made him dry-mouthed with adolescent anticipation.

  Stupid, he thought savagely as he wrestled the panel out of his way and stared at the tangle of connecting filaments. As if a telenetic would look twice at a grunt like him. Only if she was scrapping me off her shoe, he thought with an inner snort, remembering what Bags had said about her being an ice nebula. Well, he could fantasize all he liked, but he wasn’t likely to even catch a glimpse of her, let alone meet her on a ship this size.

  With a sigh, he reached into the case for his splicer. Time to get back to reality.

  *******

  Ryelle watched her new commander pace and wondered if he was working off excess energy or if he was nervous. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made someone nervous, but this man had a reputation for steel nerve and stone resolve. The Fleet would put no less a person in command of their best ship.