An Accidental Goddess

370 Pages·2016·0.61 MB·English

by  Baker Megan Sybil

An Accidental Goddess
-A far-future sequel to Wintertide-
by [Linnea Sinclair, writing as] Megan Sybil Baker
entirely coincidental.
An Accidental Goddess
ISBN 1-55316-100-9
Published by LTDBooks
www.ltdbooks.com
Chapter 1
It wasn't the first time Gillie had hazily regained
consciousness flat on her back in sickbay, feeling stiff and
out of sorts. And unable to account for a missing two or
three hours. Pub-crawling did have its side effects.
But it was the first time she'd been unable to account
for a missing two or three hundred years. Not even a week
of pub-crawling could explain that.
Three hundred forty-two years, sixteen hours, Simon's
voice stated clearly in her mind. If you want to be absolutely
accurate.
She didn't. Her math skills had never been her strong
point. And three hundred years was a close enough
estimate to cause her stomach to do flip-flops in a way a
bottle of Devil's Breath never had.
The possibility that she'd died flitted across her mind,
though logically death wouldn't have thrown her
inexplicably into the future. Even so, she thought it prudent
to pull her essence out of her physical self and make a
cursory examination of her own body on the diag-table. By
all appearances, she was still short, blonde and very much
alive. The readout on the medi-stat confirmed the last part
of her hastily conducted diagnosis. It detailed a few bumps
and bruises as well as notations on a mild concussion, no
doubt the source of her blistering headache.
A headache that wasn't the least bit helped by
whatever heathen concoction was being pumped into her
system through the round med broche clamped to her
wrist. Med broches! Raheiran technology rarely used such
invasive things. She longed to alter its feed rate but knew
her mental tinkering would likely set off some alarm. She'd
almost tripped a few when she'd awakened ten minutes
ago, groggy and achy, and tried to spike into this sickbay's
systems.
Impatience invariably leads to sloppy work, Simon had
chastised.
Sloppy work, a bitch of a headache and a reality that
suddenly did not make sense.
How in the Seven Hells had she ended up three
hundred years from her last conscious moment, flat on her
back in some unknown space station's sickbay? With
Simon in a similar state of disarray a few decks below.
The Fav'lhir.
Ah, yes. Small matter of a large warship intent on her
destruction. Obviously, the Fav hadn't succeeded. Though
something had happened.
They're vicious and powerful, Simon, but they don't
have time travel capabilities. Neither do we. Someone or
something else pulled us here. Wherever "here" was. That
much she ought to find out.
She stepped away from her diag-table and peeked
around the corner of the small room. Felt foolish and could
hear Simon's wry chuckle. No one could see her.
At least, no one other than Simon, who, from his tone,
was very aware she'd pulled out of her self to explore her
surroundings. Have a care, My Lady. You were injured.
We've more serious things to consider than my few
aches and pains. There were two other patients in the
sickbay other than Simon and herself, who were in much
worse shape than she was. She didn't know them; there'd
been no one on her ship when the Fav had attacked. The
girl on the diag-bed was too young to be part of the
squadron she'd worked with in the Khalaran Fleet. Almost
automatically, Gillie touched their essences as she walked
by. Then she sidestepped quickly, and unnecessarily, as a
thin man in a blue lab coat hurried past and into the
corridor.
She followed him, and for the next fifteen minutes was
thoroughly astounded, and more than a little disconcerted,
by what she saw.
Wide corridors were filled with people in various
modes of dress, from the utilitarian freighter crew shipsuits
to more exotic costumes with flowing skirts and elaborate
fringed shawls. She heard all three Khalaran dialects, and a
few languages that were harder to identify. Rim world
tongues, most likely, clipped and rapid in their sound.
She raised her eyebrows at the anti-grav pallets
trailing behind a group of dockworkers, surprised by the
pallets' advanced configuration. Raised her eyebrows
further at the state-of-the-art holovid news kiosks and
station diagrams near the lift banks. Those she studied
carefully, listening to the chatter around her; tech talk about
scanner arrays and enviro grids. That matched what she
saw on the diagram suspended three-dimensionally out
from the bulkhead.
The Khalaran Confederation, with her assistance, had
just been developing the technology to create a deep
space station the likes of which she looked at now. At least,
they had been a day ago.
Correction, three hundred and forty-two years ago.
Yet it wasn't this jump in technology that bothered her.
Nor this space structure bristling with unexpected weapons
and sensors and databanks. Nor her headache. Or the
stiffness in her left shoulder, the result of her sudden
collision with the bulkhead when the Fav'lhir ship had
exploded a little too close for comfort off her starboard
side.
Even the unexplained, missing three hundred and
some odd years failed to bother her. Or the fact that, in
those three hundred and some odd years, there'd been no
other Raheiran advisors in this sector.
Given her people's minimal intervention policy, that
was one of the few things that made sense.
No, none of those things bothered her at all.
What really bothered her was something she had
heard in the corridor chatter, something she viewed on the
news kiosks and station diagrams. And finally, something
she saw as she stood before the temple's double-doored
entrance, shaking her head in disbelief.
What really bothered Gillaine Davré was that during
her three hundred and some odd year absence, the
damned Khalar had gone on a shrine-building kick, and
made her into a deity.
Simon? There's a temple with my name on it! But I'm
not-
It appears they think you are, My Lady.
Oh, hell. Oh, damn. This wasn't a minor error in alien
protocol: a wrong phrase, an inelegant gesture
misinterpreted. This was a mistake. A big one that
encompassed an entire culture. Gillie shuddered at the
ramifications. We have to get away from here. Now.
Now is not possible, I fear.
When?
Three weeks, perhaps less. There's much damage to
repair.
There'll be worse damage if they find out who I am!
Calm down, Gillaine Kiasidira. There's no reason they
should. Just try to avoid contact with any crystal and, of
course, any itinerant witches or sorcerers.
The Khalar aren't mageline.
Then we'll have no problems, will we? Just be your
usual, charming self for the next few weeks and no one will
know a goddess walks among them.
I'm not a goddess!
Nor are you seriously injured. Therefore, if you don't
return to your self rather quickly that medical officer trying to
wake you may start running tests you won't like.
Damn!
* * *
Rynan Makarian frowned at the irritatingly incomplete
data on his deskscreen and knew it was all his fault. It had
been four months since he'd been given the command to
establish a Fleet presence on Cirrus One and secure it for
the Project. Station systems were still far from optimal.
Cirrus One was far from optimal; the station had passed its
prime well over eighty-five years ago.
"Give it to Mack. He'll fix it," someone in Fleet Defense
and Logistics no doubt had said.
It wouldn't have been the first time it had been said,
either. He knew his reputation for unerring efficiency
preceded him. It had bestowed upon him the rank of
admiral in the Khalaran's newly organized Fifth Fleet at the
unlikely age of forty-three. And bestowed upon him the
derelict monstrosity known as Cirrus One, to rehab into a
usable headquarters for the Fifth. And, eventually, serve as
something even more important than that: as the primary
terminus for the critical Rim Gate Project.
That project, more than Cirrus One, had drawn him off
the bridge of the Vedritor and ensconced him behind a
desk-a well-dented, slightly rusted desk-at forty-three.
But it was Cirrus One that took up the majority of his
time. Yet time was the one thing he lacked. He had little
more than a month in which to get his HQ fully operational
and secure. Missing supplies, incomplete data and
delayed support staff notwithstanding.
He rested his elbows on that same battered desk and
leaned his forehead against his fists. Damn. There was a
wisdom in imperfection. He saw that clearly now. What was
that adage that Lady Kiasidira's priests used to comfort the
misguided? We are all in a continuing process of growth.
There are no mistakes. Only lessons.
Cirrus One was one hell of a lesson.
Had he allowed himself a few mistakes in his career,
he might well still be on the bridge of the Vedritor. A mere
senior captain, not an admiral with an impeccable
reputation to solve the unsolvable. To rectify the-
His intercom trilled. He tapped the flashing icon,
leaned back in his chair. "Makarian."
A familiar thin face wavered, solidified on the screen.
Doc Janek, his chief medical officer. His blue lab coat bore
the Vedritor's insignia. Like many things Mack had
requested, Fifth Fleet uniforms were still "in transit." As
supply routes went, Cirrus One wasn't in the middle of
nowhere. It was just the last exit before it.
"Admiral, you asked to be notified. Our visitor from that
damaged freighter's awake."
Yet one more thing to plague his schedule with delays:
an unauthorized ship with an unconscious pilot. An image
flashed through Mack's mind: a pale-haired young woman
in nondescript spacer grays lying awkwardly on the
decking, just behind the pilot's chair. Emergency lighting
had tinged the small bridge with glaring shades of red,
casting eerie shadows over her small, still form. Another
smuggler, he'd thought at that moment, whose ambitions
had far exceeded her ship's weaponry.
He had a studied dislike for smugglers, yet had felt it
would be a shame if this one died. He'd caught little more
than her profile as the med techs had lifted her onto an
anti-grav stretcher. But it had been enough for him to
mentally tag her as beautiful, before he was even aware
he'd done so.
That wasn't like him. It was unprofessional, judgmental.
She was nothing more than a temporary annoyance.
But she was beautiful. It made the job of questioning
her a bit less unpleasant.
"On my way." He slapped off the intercom, threw one
more frustrating glance at the inadequate, nonsensical data
and strode from his office.
The sights and sounds of Cirrus One assaulted him
immediately. He'd thought by now he'd be used to them.
Had the sights and sounds been continually repetitive, he
probably would be.
But there was always something new. Or rather, there
was always something. His office was a few steps from the
main atrium. Raucous laughter barked out from a level or
two below, or possibly above, as Mack stepped into the
open corridor. A man and a woman, in the blue shipsuits of
a starfreighter crew, leaned against a wide metal pylon on
his left. They were locked in a passionate embrace,
oblivious to his presence. And oblivious to the snickers of a
trio of adolescent boys in various stages of sartorial
rebellion loping past, their long skirts catching between
their gangly legs.
Mack shook his head, sent a mental plea to the Gods
for understanding. And patience. He missed the orderly
routine of the Vedritor.
There was a loud whoop, a high-pitched screech. His
gaze automatically jerked to the right. A flash of bright
yellow and blue hurtled quickly uplevel through the atrium's
center.
His hand automatically tapped the intercom badge on
his chest. "Makarian to Ops."
"Ops. Lieutenant Tobias."
"I thought we'd solved the parrot problem."
"I thought we had too, sir."
"I just left my office." He sidestepped a merchant
whose balding head barely topped the bolts of cloth
stacked in his arms. Evidently someone was getting hard
goods deliveries. Where in hell were those uniforms?
"Main north, Tobias. Heading uplevel. The problem's not
solved."
"Logged and noted, sir."
He tapped off his badge. Fleet crewmembers, whose
uniforms showed mixed insignias, nodded respectfully as
he passed. Stationers and freighter crew, whose clothing
and demeanor showed an unholy mixture of unknown
origin, simply ignored him. Janek's sickbay was at D5
south, five levels down, opposite section of the ring. He
headed for the stairs. Cirrus One's lifts had been known to
ignore him, too.
The lanky CMO turned from the medi-stat panel when
Mack stepped through the sliding doorway. "She's in Exam
Four."
They approached a second sliding door-this one
ceased opening at the halfway point. Mack squeezed
through sideways after Janek.
The young woman on the diag-bed had her knees
drawn up under the silver thermo-sheet, her arms wrapped
around them. There was a flush of color on her cheeks, a
slight curve on her lips. And an engaging, almost
challenging tilt to her chin.
She was, most definitely, beautiful. But young. Couldn't
be any more than twenty-five years old, though sickbay's
analytics transsed to him earlier had stated early thirties.
Something more than her youthfulness didn't fit the
smuggler's profile as he knew it. He couldn't pinpoint what
it was but then, his mind seemed very reluctant to focus on
business at the moment.
Janek moved to her bedside. She smiled, then her
gaze found Mack.
"This is Admiral Makarian, commander of Fifth Fleet on
Cirrus," his CMO was saying, but Mack only half listened.
The other half of him was unprofessionally captivated by
the color of the young woman's eyes.
Green, yet lavender. Her eyes widened slightly at his
introduction. He assumed the cause of her surprise was his
age-he was the youngest admiral in Fleet history to date-or
his uniform. His shirt, like Janek's lab coat, still had the
Vedritor's insignia. The bars decorating his breast pocket
showed only the three for senior captain.
His admiral's bars, like the requested uniforms, had
also not yet materialized. Now, he wished they had. For
some reason, he wanted to look his best in front of her. He
shook off his uncharacteristic self-consciousness. She was
just a smuggler. She was-
"Gillaine Davré." She leaned forward, extended one
hand. No salute. Therefore, she wasn't military, or even
ex-military.
He took her hand, got a closer look at those eyes.
They were an odd combination of green and lavender.
Green with decidedly lavender flecks. His fingers tightened
around hers. A man could lose his soul in eyes like those.
The direction of his thoughts jolted him. Quickly, he cleared
his throat, refocused. Put a firm tone in his voice. "Miselle
Davré? Or is it Captain?"
"Captain, technically. But mostly just Gillie."
He released her hand. She had a voice almost as
intriguing as her eyes. Firm, yet with a sultry undercurrent.
He imagined her laugh-
He had to stop imagining. He didn't imagine. He never
imagined.
He stepped back, clasped his hands behind his waist.
"My CMO tells me your injuries aren't serious. Your ship
has significant damage, however."
The exam room's utilitarian overheads were harsh,
bright, but their light played through her short pale hair in a
mixture of silver and gold like moonlight and starlight.
There was an almost ethereal beauty about her. Mack felt
as if he knew her, but from a dream.
He halted this additional imaginative mental
wandering. "Your ship also has no sanctioned
Confederation ID. I need to know, Captain, just who you
are. What you're doing here."