DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

her and her patient as the quarters would allow. Stumbling back to her stool, she sat down heavily, keeping her eyes on Khiershon Cree.
    “What the hell are you?” she asked, shuddering with her own question.
    “Computer whiz of the first order, I’ve been told.”
    Caitlin swung her head toward the voice and let out a long breath. “And very modest, eh, Catt Le?” she snorted at Cathy Atherton.
    “Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it!’ the computer tech grinned. She held up her hand. “I thought you just might want to take a look at what’s on this disc.” She sailed the plastic disk toward Caitlin like a Chrystallusian throwing star, chuckling when Caitlin snatched it out of the air with ease.
    Caitlin looked down at the pale blue plastic disk. “What’s on it?”
    Atherton shrugged. “The translation of that little journal that was retrieved along with Pretty Boy over there.” She turned her head and smiled. “They really did a number on him, didn’t they?”
    “He woke up a few moments ago,” Caitlin said offhandedly. She swiveled around and popped the disc into her computer’s CPU.
    “Did he say anything?”
    Caitlin pretended she hadn’t heard. She adjusted the font size on the screen when the data came up, then leaned forward, ignoring Atherton who had walked over to the patient.
    “You’ll find that fascinating reading,” Atherton remarked as she stopped at Cree’s bedside. She smiled at his sleeping face, and then reached out to push a lock of hair from his forehead.
    Caitlin was so engrossed in her reading, she did not see Atherton bend over the patient and kiss him softly on the forehead. Nor did she see the light touch of the other woman’s fingers on Cree’s cheek. Had she been a witness to the strange intimacy, she would have thrown Atherton out of sickbay. As it was, she became lost in the translation of the alien language that told the tale of Khiershon Cree.

Chapter Three
     
    The Journal of Kaelia Kahmal
     
    I have created this missive to record the events leading up to the Ritual of Alluvia that is to be carried out in the Land of the Shadows at the waning of the Lunar Phase, two days hence.
    In the year now known as the Year of the Reaper, our sonar network picked up the heat signature of a ship of our Rysalian enemies. The ship was very close to our restricted air space and therefore suspect. We learned the ship was on a training mission from Instructional Camp D-9, the home base of the Rysalian Fleet Command. (It is there that their warrior elite was trained.) The ship was hailed and it was learned the Rysalians were having navigational problems. We warned them away, but they ignored our warnings, arrogant males that they were. After crossing into Amazeen air space in violation of our repeated warnings, the ship was shot down and landed not far from the Veil of Chloe in the Asarat Valley. A patrol of nine Alpha warrioresses was dispatched to see if there were survivors.
    Our patrol found nine dead and five so severely hurt, it was a blessing to them to put them out of their misery, which we did with dispatch. It would have been a blessing for us had we slain them all on the spot, for among the twelve crewmembers that were taken into captivity that day was a Ry-Chalean boy.
    From the moment our Guardress saw him, she knew him for what he was and immediately rendered him unconscious, taking no chances that he might be old enough to Transition.. He was chained hand and foot and taken to the medical facility for immediate containment and experimentation.
    The other prisoners were taken to the Court of Anioch and sold into slavery to various households before the day was out. We had no problems with these males except for one. This one fought fiercely and warned us that to harm the young Ry-Chalean in any way would be dangerous beyond measure. When he spoke the boy’s name, the Court was thrown into much turmoil for it was learned he was called Khiershon Cree, son of the Prime