“They don’t dare harm him. He’s their only leverage for keeping the male Secs in line, those in the city anyway. They’ve still got communications in a blank-out, thanks to the Mock II in Goverance Building. And they’re still only letting traffic in, not out. It’s too bad that computer was never programmed to a single individual. If it had been linked to Garr as Martha was to you, Garr would have been freed a long time ago.”

“And we might have had an all-out war and a hell of a time winning it, or are you forgetting how easily those warriors defeated us with their Toreno steel weapons?”

“Ah, that’s a good point, and I guess the next major question is, do your warriors have Toreno steel?”

“Where do you think the Sha-Ka’ari armorers’ recipe came from? What I’ve brought back are sword-wielders to defeat sword-wielders, and mine are bigger, stronger, and they don’t particularly like slavers.”

“Even though they are in a sense related?”

“I think three hundred years has pretty much broken the ties,” she replied dryly. “Besides, they follow Challen, and he-”

“Follows you?”

“Not exactly.” Tedra grinned. “Things this big don’t take orders easily-unless they give permission first to be ordered around.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s a private joke, Rourk,” she said quickly, hearing the barbarian’s rumble. “But Challen is here because he has this thing about pleasing me. He really gets a kick out of it.”

“The woman is ‘going around the block’ to say what is important to her is important to me,” Challen explained.

“Isn’t that sweet, Rourk?” Tedra beamed.

“Any sweeter and we’ll get fat,” he teased, then added sincerely, “I’d say you hit the jackpot, babe.”

“I know.”

“So you’ve brought us an army. Now to figure a way to get it inside Goverance Building. That isn’t going to be easy. Crad has just about all his warriors securing the place, except those who still go out to collect the lawbreaking females. No one gets in without a very good reason.”

“You’re forgetting the Rover, babe. Martha is going to simply Transfer us inside the building.”

“Not us,” Challen clarified. “You, woman, will come nowhere near where warriors will be fighting.”

“Challen!”

Chapter Forty-five

It took three hours of shouting and arguing and coming close to challenging before the barbarian could be budged from his stand. But when Tedra tried a long shot and got Martha on line to ask her opinion, her contrary computer actually backed her up. She wouldn’t be doing any Transferring unless Tedra was included, and that took care of that.

Challen was not happy about it. He had to war with his need to keep Tedra safe and his desire to let her be herself, which he had come to realize was what had attracted him to her in the first place, her difference from other women. It was important to her to be part of the fighting. Martha’s compliance reminded him of that. But he liked it not.

Tedra wasn’t taking any chances that he’d change his mind again. She quickly concluded arrangements with Rourk, who would contact all their people who had been working toward liberation without success. Fortunately, there was no need to involve them in the fighting at Goverance Building, but there would still be warriors out in the city who would need to be taken care of, at least kept track of, and they could do that.

So it was less than another hour after leaving Rourk that Martha Transferred them all to different points inside Goverance Building. Tedra, Challen, and six others made their appearance right inside the Director’s office. And it was fortunate that Molecular Transfer was instantaneous, for Crad Ce Moerr was not alone, but was in conference with some of his warriors, ten to be exact, and all armed. Had Transferring been any slower, Tedra’s group could have had swords pointing at their throats before it was completed.

As it was, the opposite happened. The Sha-Ka’ari were too surprised to draw their weapons with any degree of swiftness, and were disarmed in a matter of minutes. Only one resisted, and he was made to regret it when Tamiron engaged him and made short work of it. Crad Ce Moerr, on the other hand, managed to sound an alarm. Tedra could have kicked herself for not anticipating that. So much for making the rest of it go easy.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” Crad said with full confidence even though his warriors were throwing down their weapons. “But you’re not getting out of here alive.”

“It sounds like that should have been my line,” Tedra replied, coming up to push the dictator back down in his seat. “Except I know who you are, you slime ball, and your fun’s over with here.”

“Because you say so?” he sneered. “Maybe you don’t know what you’re up against. I happen to have hundreds of warriors right here in this building.”

“So… do… I,” Tedra was delighted to tell him. “But you won’t be around to see the outcome. Martha?” She opened the link of her lazor. “Transfer this jerk to the Rover’s lockup. Garr can have the pleasure of disposing of him later.”

“You can’t-”

But the dictator blinked out before he could say any more, and although it gave Tedra a great deal of pleasure to have done that, she was reminded by a glance about the room that they weren’t finished yet.

“Where do you have Garr Ce Bernn?” she asked the nearest Sha-Ka’ari.

“The alarm was given, woman. He will be dead by now.”

“You’re lying,” she said angrily. “He’s the only bargaining power you guys got, or are you too stupid to know that?”

“Why does a woman speak for you?” the warrior demanded of Challen, who stood directly behind her.

“This is her world, thus is this her concern. I am here merely to see that she is protected in the doing of what she must do. Best you answer her now.”

“Protected?” Tedra snorted, swinging around to the barbarian and, in the process, letting her elbow connect with the belligerent warrior’s windpipe. “I don’t need protecting from jerks who don’t know what to do with a woman unless she’s a slave. Protected?” she snorted again and looked at another Sha-Ka’ari. This time she merely snapped, “Garr Ce Bernn?”

“Below,” the man answered immediately, his eyes on his friend rolling on the floor choking. “In the detaining rooms below.”

“Thank you,” Tedra replied on the way to the door. “Well, come on, protector. This isn’t over yet.”

“You have no reason to be angry, chemar, ” Challen said as he stopped her from opening the door before he could see what awaited on the other side. Nothing did.

“I’m not,” she admitted while she hurried her pace down the empty corridor. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried and needed to take it out on someone. They wouldn’t really kill Garr just because that farden alarm sounded, would they?”

“I would like to reassure you, but I cannot fathom the minds of warriors such as these.”

“Who can? Oh, Stars, I want to rush down there, Challen, but if they were going to kill him, it’s been done already. But if he’s still alive, then that alarm got him surrounded, so we’d be smart to gather our forces before we go any farther. And from the look of it, all the Sha-Ka’ari have either deserted the building or-”

“Or they have gathered below for a united defense.”

“Exactly.”

The latter proved to be true, much to the Sha-Ka’ani warriors’ delight. They’d come here to do some fighting, but hadn’t got much in so far. There had been some sporadic engagements throughout the building, but the bulk of the Sha-Ka’ari warriors had headed straight for the lower levels. Tedra could have gladly left them down there to rot, since there was only one way in or out, if Garr wasn’t down there with them.

Standing there looking at the six lifts that wouldn’t fit all of them at once, Tedra was ready to pull hairs. “It won’t work. The area in front of the lifts down there is as big as it is up here. They’ll be lined up ten deep just waiting for the doors to open. I ought to have Martha Transfer them all into deep space.”