Pathways - Jeri Taylor [198]
He vaporized.
Kes drew a shocked breath, then shut her eyes, believing that the same fate awaited her. At least she would be spared the promised torture. But only silence prevailed, and she opened her eyes again to see Jabin looking at her with what might almost pass as gratitude.
“My life is yours, Ocampa. That’s a debt no Kazon would fail to honor. I’ll keep you here because I enjoy you, but you have my word I won’t hurt you again.”
And with that he walked out of the room. Kes sank onto the floor and, for the first time in weeks, began to cry.
Two days later there were no signs of the battle. The one Ocampa ruin was destroyed, of course, but that was hardly remarkable. Jabin’s men had buried their dead and tossed the bodies of the Sara victims into the desert as feast for the insects—the only life-form to have survived the intense heat of the last millennium.
Kes had a black eye and a split lip from the last time Jabin had smashed her face, but he had kept his word and not laid a hand on her since the night of the attack. The work, however, was as punishing as ever, the rations as meager, and the heat as stifling. She was torn between trying to escape back to her underground city, and waiting to see if, somehow, Neelix might still be able to take her away from this awful place.
She knew, of course, that the likelihood of that was slim. He had angered Jabin, and the Maje wasn’t one to forgive easily. Neelix was but one man, in a dilapidated starship, who couldn’t possibly hope to take on this well-armed contingent of Kazon warriors.
Finding the access tunnel that would take her home again seemed like the only viable option. She began laying plans to escape, noting Jabin’s schedule, the times when most of the men were in the mines, secreting scraps of food and droplets of water to sustain her in her walk across the desert floor.
She was sitting in the shade, chipping cormaline, pondering the best time to make her escape, when she heard a great outcry of voices. The Kazon were shouting angrily, and her heart constricted with fear as she thought they were coming for her.
Tentatively, she rose and crept toward a space between two of the compound’s buildings, edging close enough to be able to hear what was happening. She had deduced that the Kazon had taken a captive and were threatening to execute him, when suddenly she heard Neelix’s voice! He was the one they were about to dispatch. Paralyzed, she listened as his dear voice called out, imploring them.
“Jabin! My old friend.”
A silence followed. Then Neelix again: “Water! I have water to replace all that I borrowed!”
Her breath caught sharply. If he could bring them water, they might forgive him, and he might then be able to get her off this wretched planet. She eased forward, closer and closer.
“Their ship has technology that can make water out of thin air,” Neelix was saying.
There was another silence, then Jabin spoke. “You have more?”
And then a woman’s voice, strong and commanding, completely unafraid: “Janeway to Voyager. Energize.”
Something in the woman’s voice compelled her to move forward, to hear better and even to see who possessed this confident manner. She heard complexities in the voice, richness and compassion and wisdom. And in that moment, she knew it was a voice she would instinctively follow, no matter where it led.
CHAPTER
13
NEELIX DIDN’T KNOW WHEN SLEEP RECLAIMED HIM—IF, IN fact, he’d ever been awake—but he opened his eyes in the morning feeling more peaceful than he had in some time.
And closer to Kes than ever.
There was solace in understanding what had brought her above ground, what had precipitated her great adventure. He believed, though he would never say this to anyone, that she had heard his story, and decided to share hers with him. It was an