Tethered Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Biography

  Tethered

  An Inc-Su Story

  Pippa Jay

  Breathless Press

  Calgary, Alberta

  www.breathlesspress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or

  persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Tethered

  Copyright © 2014 Pippa Jay

  ISBN: 978-1-77101-295-9

  Cover Artist: Victoria Miller

  Editor: Kristen Pavka

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations

  embodied in reviews.

  Breathless Press

  www.breathlesspress.com

  Dedication

  With thanks - to Gayle Ramage and Chantal Halpin for the discussion about under-used legendary and mythological people that helped spark this story. To Jessica E. Subject, Laurie A. Green, Liana Brooks, and especially Danielle Fine who helped me polish it from rough draft to gem. Also, thank you to Breathless Press and my editor, Kristen Pavka.

  Chapter One

  Tyree spun on her heels, her long hair lashing around her as she faced the council. “You want me to be a what?”

  Thirteen elderly Inc-Su met her scream of outrage with angry stares. The last syllable echoed around the chamber. If sound could penetrate metaglass, it would have scattered the saurian lowri gliding past the panoramic windows on membranous wings.

  Tyree swore G’vorek, one of her former mentors, winked at her, and her irritation eased a fraction at his silent support. Some of the other council members shifted in their hover seats as she cast her gaze over them. Several scowled. Beyond the oval table and the council members, clouds drifted past the window obscuring the slender sky towers of Refuge, a serene background that conflicted with the turmoil suddenly seething in her chest.

  “I didn’t think the phrase ‘co-delegate’ would be considered such an offensive term even by you, Tyree,” Great Mother M’roc said.

  Tyree latched her attention onto the matriarch. Unlike the majority of the Inc-Su, M’roc had a generous, matronly figure and caramel-colored skin. Dark braids tinted with gray framed her broad face. There was a saying among the Inc-Su, twisted from the old Terran phrase—as solid as M’roc. Unbending, reliable, consistent, and strong. Good traits in a leader, but it meant once she’d made a decision, nothing could change her mind. If she’d chosen this role for Tyree...

  “I’m an assassin, not a frigging diplomat,” Tyree retorted, but the initial fire of her resistance had guttered. Arguing already felt like a lost cause, but she had to make the point.

  Several members of the council tsked at her insolence. G’vorek smiled, deepening the vast collection of wrinkles on his thin, seamed face. Like the other ancients, the charcoal black of his skin had faded to gray, giving him a stone-like appearance.

  “Your skills are many, and you are perfect for this role,” M’roc continued.

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps you should explain the situation more thoroughly,” G’vorek said, his voice like layers of slate sliding over one another.

  M’roc clasped her gnarled hands and threw her co-councilor an exasperated glare before looking back at Tyree. “I was about to. The Terrans are once more negotiating their centennial peace treaty with the Tier-vane.”

  Tyree waved a hand, dismissing the news as unimportant.

  “Perhaps you’d be less indifferent if I told you there have been three assassination attempts on the co-delegates? According to tradition, once the delegates on both sides have been chosen, no others may substitute. It would be taken as a sign of deception. An attempt at trickery.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Tyree murmured, but she was more interested in the revelation about the assassination attempts. Whoever had committed those attacks couldn’t have been Inc-Su. It would never have taken three tries, and all of them failures. If it had—and it would be a first in their history—was that why she was being assigned? Somehow three Inc-Su had failed, and now they were sending her?

  “On the third attempt, one of the delegates was killed and the other almost crippled. The Inc-Su have no wish to see another war break out between the Tier-vane and Terrans. Some of us remember the last.”

  “What difference does that make to the Inc-Su? We’re not Terran and we’re not Tier-vane. We’re neutral.”

  “No. The Tier-vane see us as just as human as the Terrans, though our paths diverged many centuries ago. Don’t forget, either, that we are very few in number, especially compared to the multitudes of humanity. Even if we kept ourselves clear of the conflict, we would likely suffer losses. Besides...”

  For the first time, M’roc’s voice faltered. Several members shifted in their floating chairs and Tyree took note of the restless ones. All the ancients, those old enough to have seen that last Tier-vane/Terran conflict.

  Interesting.

  “Besides, what?” Tyree snapped. What could have persuaded M’roc into this folly?

  “We have been offered a generous payment by the Terrans.”

  Tyree frowned. Odd glances directed at M’roc suggested the statement she’d made wasn’t the expected one. Or perhaps they didn’t agree such a thing should be shared with a low-level Su.

  “What could possibly draw the Inc-Su into a deal like that?”

  “They have offered us complete neutrality.”

  Shock slammed into her. Assassination wasn’t legal on all the worlds, but particularly those under human rulership. There were plenty of planets in the Territories where an Inc-Su agent could be imprisoned, even executed, just for performing their assigned task. If a target knew they were marked, they would frequently transport to one of those worlds, but that wouldn’t stop an operative. Sometimes they were caught. For the Terrans to offer total neutrality meant there’d be few restrictions on Inc-Su anywhere.

  “Even so...” she muttered. “You said delegates can’t be changed once the choice is made. How am I supposed to get away with impersonating the corpse? Surely they’ll know the difference?”

  Again, the council shuffled in their chairs. M’roc seemed hesitant to speak. If they hadn’t been shielded, Tyree would’ve scanned their auras to see what had them all in a fidget.

  “Inc-Su operatives are not always assassins, nor do they always remain in Refuge. We find it helpful to have various members scattered throughout the Territories in other roles. Mirsee was such a one.”

  “An Inc-Su diplomat?” Well, she’d heard it all now.

  M’roc carried on as if Tyree’s surprise were a minor concern. “That was her position. Her abilities as a Su were...flawed. The cloning process isn’t always perfect, and she had an anomaly in her genetic structure that meant she could not use her powers fully. But her ability to read auras made her useful. She was traded to the Terran Government.”

  “Traded?”

  “For certain diplomatic benefits to the Inc-Su.”

  It sounded like a form of slavery. So Mirsee had been linked to a Terran partner?

  “But unless she’s from the same cloning as I am...” That was it. That was why she’d been
chosen. Mirsee was from her batch, separated from Tyree only by the fault in her genetic makeup. One that could’ve easily affected Tyree but for chance. “There are others from the same grouping—”

  “No longer. Only three male Incu remain. Your kin group was...” M’roc searched for the word, “—unusual, both in conception and behavior. It was an endeavor we have never repeated. For all the benefits it provided, there were too many anomalies.”

  Ice trickled down Tyree’s throat and into her stomach. She’d always known her kin group was different. She’d never known they were an experiment gone wrong. Why say it to her now? To make her even more unsettled than she already was? Maybe they hoped putting her off balance with this revelation would make it easier to bend her to their will. She clenched her fists. Not bloody likely.

  “Is there anything else I should know?” Her voice came out weak.

  “You’ll be given a full briefing. I take it you are accepting the assignment?”

  “Do I honestly have a choice?”

  “No.”

  “Then I accept.” She turned her back on the council and left. As if there’s anything I could do to get out of this. The bitterness of that thought made her faintly nauseated.

  In the corridor outside, a call stopped her in her tracks.

  “Ty?” G’vorek’s chair whispered alongside, and the cushion of anti-grav sent a chill wave around her bare legs that made her shiver. Fresh back from a mission, she wore only her Su-hair shift covering her from neck to mid-thigh, and a cropped lowri-hide jacket zipped tightly around her torso.

  “My name’s Ty-ree,” she said, emphasizing the missing letters. She carried on walking, and he glided alongside like a bothersome bug that needed swatting. “What is it?”

  “You seem upset, fidget.”

  Despite herself, the old nickname made her smile. Few of the council treated their charges and genetic offspring as children, more like small adults that needed constant chastising. G’vorek had been different.

  “Well, I’ve just been told that one, my brood group was a faulty experiment. Two, Inc-Su operatives can be flawed and are sold off as slaves. And three, I’m now being assigned to some Terran delegate I’ve never heard of and never seen. It’s not what I’d call a good day.”

  “His name is Zander D’joren.”

  Tyree stopped dead and looked at the ancient.

  “And Mirsee wasn’t sold off into slavery. She was given a choice.”

  “What, the same choice we get on testing? Kill or be killed? Or was her choice the Terran or Dissipation?” Her voice rose, carried up by flames of anger. Tendrils of fear. Emotions she could lock out in combat mode, but that swarmed freely in her current state. She’d been on many worlds, but she’d always come directly back to the Inc-Su Refuge. Now she was being sent away from home for heaven knew how long, to play a role in which she had no experience.

  “Tyree.” G’vorek glided closer. “M’roc shouldn’t have told you about your origins like that. But we are desperate. We are afraid of another war.”

  “Why, exactly? We could stay out of it.”

  “The Tier-vane wouldn’t allow that. Despite their biological differences, our abilities affect the Tier just as much as humans. During the last war, many Inc-Su were sent in to assassinate the higher members of Tier-vane hierarchy. They retaliated by developing psi weapons that could render us helpless.”

  “They did?” Tyree tried to imagine that. No longer being able to walk through walls or see auras. Being defenseless and vulnerable. To be psychically blind. She shuddered. “They could kill us?”

  G’vorek shook his head. “It was worse than that. The weapon took our powers, and often our minds. And yet underneath that, those affected would be aware of what had happened. What continued to happen. It became a fashion for the elite in the Tier-vane military to have a psi-damaged Inc-Su as a personal...slave, pet, what have you. Some took great delight in posting recordings back to Refuge of what those Inc-Su suffered.” He shivered and closed his eyes. “When the war ended, we sent operatives to rescue them, but many simply asked for death rather than return with their minds and auras ravaged. We granted their wishes. Those that did return...often did not last long. We could not heal what had been done to them, body and mind. Dissipation was a blessing.”

  “The only mercy is a sharp blade, delivered swiftly.” Tyree softly quoted the assassin’s credo.

  “Indeed.”

  “So the Inc-Su are desperate for the treaty to continue?” Tyree frowned. “But then who were the assassins?”

  “We don’t know. We feel the only way to protect the surviving delegate is to assign him a sister clone to Mirsee, one who has all her abilities and then some.”

  “So now I’m a frigging bodyguard as well?” She made an exasperated sound, but G’vorek’s revelations had left her chilled.

  “Tyree, we need you on this. Not only will the Tier-vane accept you as Mirsee, but D’joren needs your protection. And...she was more than just his co-delegate. They were bonded.”

  “Bonded?” Tyree swore. “I’m not going to replace his life partner! He can go rig someone else.”

  “When that someone could be another assassin?” G’vorek tapped the back of her hand, a reprimand he had used when she was a child. “You are not expected to fulfill all of Mirsee’s duties. Merely to stand at his side during the negotiations, which he will handle himself, and to watch his back. The last attempt damaged him badly and left him alone, scarred, and afraid. Grieving. And yet he continues, because he knows only he can maintain the peace. He will need your support. That doesn’t involve sex. Just your presence.”

  Uncertainty twisted her stomach, and she mocked her own fears. What could a crippled Terran man do to a Su assassin anyway?

  “I won’t be Tethered?” Terrans had a method to secure Inc-Su, preventing them from Misting out.

  G’vorek laughed. “No. You’ll have diplomatic immunity, if nothing else. Besides, how much protection could you be if we allowed them to Tether you? No.”

  Tyree sighed. She couldn’t refuse anyway. “I’ll go pack. Then I’ll go to the debriefing.”

  G’vorek nodded. “That’s my fidget.”

  “G’vorek?”

  “Yes?”

  “What was so odd about my kin group?”

  Was that fear warping the wrinkles on his face? At over three centuries old, time had made his expression almost unreadable except to those who knew him well.

  “You were not cloned from a single council member.”

  “Then from where?”

  “An Inc-Su pairing.”

  “What?” Tyree couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d said her brood group had spontaneously created itself. “But Inc-Su don’t breed. Why would they?”

  “Cloning may have been the established method for over six centuries, but once upon a time we were human too.” He touched her hand again, and she shuddered. “You might do well to remember that on your assignment.” He turned his chair and hovered away.

  “Wait!” she called, but he didn’t stop. “But who were they? Who were my parents?” And why didn’t anyone ever tell us?

  Chapter Two

  Tyree crouched amongst the cargo containers, the metal casings chilling her skin even though she never touched them. The air reeked with the throat-burning, eye-watering stench of vented exhaust fumes. She kept her breaths shallow and through her nose, but still it dried out her mouth and left an acrid tang. Held ready for departure in its slingshot cradle, the transport craft had a battered, pock-marked titanium hull stained black and green. Although it had no signs of previous hull breeches or patchwork repairs to its outer skin, the prospect of trusting herself to it sent quivers through her gut.

  But this was the best way—the only way—to get to the Seclusion, the fortified space station where D’joren was secured. The attacks on the delegates meant there was, or had been, a security leak somewhere. Rather than trust the Terrans to smuggle her aboard, she had
elected to do it herself.

  Of course, the transport was protected against Inc-Su invasion. Any craft traveling to the Seclusion would be resistant to her kind. She couldn’t just Mist and steal aboard, even though she’d been able to get past the high-level, but human, defenses guarding the dock. Getting onto the transport itself would require old-fashioned sneaking.

  A heady cocktail of excitement and adrenaline flooded her nerves, but combat mode held her steady. This was a task more suited to her talents, and the pleasure she gained from it felt almost auric. She scanned the containers on the far side of the bay beneath the open cargo doors.

  Look for a casket marked with our symbol.

  Before issuing his last instruction, G’vorek had squeezed her shoulder in a fatherly gesture that had worried her more than her mission. Despite the sign of affection, he’d still refused to tell her about her parents, and she’d been afraid to press for more. However brazen she might be in most other ways, one did not question the Fathers and Mothers of the council.

  There.

  A double circle—one with an arrow, the other with a cross—caught her sharp gaze. She sidled her way between the containers, and then Misted to slip inside. The metal exterior resisted her passage and chilled her further as she slid through. It had been made Su-proof then deliberately weakened—enough to pass the customary safety scan but not too much to shift through. Even so, her insides felt scraped and bruised when she reformed into her solid self. The casket was barely big enough to hold her rangy body—a padded coffin that enclosed her snuggly. It was warm, with an oxygen feed and a dim light source should she feel the need for it.

  Tyree settled herself on her back, fidgeting until she was relatively comfortable. The journey would only take a few hours, but her stomach clenched at the prospect of space travel. Warp drive ships terrified her in a way no human or weapon could. Even the knowledge that this transport would use a gate instead of navigating through warp space didn’t console her much. Ships could still get lost going faster than light, never to be seen again.