Two weeks of haunting the elite of Erana Prime had Tess about to snap. Her guesswork on the Hari Anuma's plot was little more than a total crapshoot and she knew it. Her patience was wearing thin and she was becoming sloppy. The Senate security nearly caught her on two occasions before she woke up and started paying attention again, and just in time.
It was still early, barely past nine a.m. when they arrived. Tess watched them come in from where she had wedged herself up in the molding around the high ceiling in the hallway like a spider and nearly didn't believe her eyes. Two smartly dressed Eranae materialized from the shadows and ducked into the senator's office, followed by a nearly naked and obviously worse-for-wear Erik. Tess slipped in behind them, shooting them both before they could turn around and eliciting a startled gasp from the secretary. Tess gave the woman a sharp look and shushed at her, but she bolted through the opposite door, no doubt to hide herself behind her employer. Tess ignored her and turned to Erik.
He stared at her as though he were looking right through her and then turned to look blankly at the heaps on the floor. She reached out for him when a sudden blow to her shoulder pulled her attention to a cruel-looking Eranae clad in armor of a similar design to her own and wielding a high-powered energy weapon standing in the doorway. The suit lacked a complete helmet, but the design clearly had been reverse-engineered from the Ayana model. She'd not seen it before and had no idea how effective it would be.
"Ah, so good of you to join us, little Hunter. I've been expecting you. You are called, Tess, correct? Well, I bid you welcome to our little game."
The Eranae slid around Erik into the room, kicking the door shut behind him and giving Tess a little sarcastic bow.
"I don't believe we have met formally. You may have heard of me though. I am Sota Enaga. I am certainly quite familiar with you. You've been dogging our steps for weeks now, don't think for a second it has escaped our notice. You foolish child! Do you believe we would leave our greatest weapon unprotected?"
Tess traced the Eranae's movements around the room but did not reply to his taunts or react in any fashion, despite her mounting panic. The situation was rapidly spirally out of control. She was thankful for the reflective Primeglass covering the sweat beading on her face.
You've really screwed it up this time, moron.
"Leave now, stupid girl. You can go tell your employer that his grandson is dead to him and ever will be. The mongrel belongs to us now, in body and mind! Yes, we know you're working for the senile old man! Who else would care for this miserable beast's hide?"
Tess's rage at the Eranae's disgusting pronouncement boiled under her skin and finally won out over her fear.
"He will never belong to you, son of a bitch!"
She let loose a volley of shots, kicking up a cloud of sparks and smoke off her target. She rarely took pleasure in killing a target, but this time she relished in it. She relished in it, that is, until a dark baritone laugh rose and filled the room as the cloud dissipated. Enaga's suit bore a few superficial scorch marks, but her shots had not penetrated the armor. Erik still stood perfectly still and silent. He had not so much as flinched at the blaster shots that had gone past him within two inches.
"Do you think you are the only one who wears armor, idiot? You can't harm me with that toy anymore than I can you! What do you think you will accomplish? Do you think your mongrel even wants to go with you? I told you, he belongs to me!"
Tess looked into Erik's passive eyes.
"Erik! Forget this loser, come with me! It's Tess!"
He did not respond. Enaga laughed.
"Go on, beg and plead all night if you wish! I appreciate the entertainment!"
Tess walked up and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him hard. She flipped back the visor of her helmet and stared desperately up at him. Erik looked down at her but his face remained slack, emotionless. He did not know her.
"Erik! It's Tess! I saved you from the opera house, remember? I saved you!"
She was getting frantic. Erik suddenly stepped back from her grasp, but his face did not change.
"You see, fool? He is mine! Come, mongrel, we have work to do!"
Enaga stepped around Tess and Erik followed wordlessly as the two pushed their way into the senator's room. Tess could not bring herself to move, so great was her shock. She stood rooted to the floor as she heard the scream of the secretary. She heard Erik sing, briefly, an otherworldly sound that pulled at her consciousness. The Voice suddenly stopped and was followed odd 'whump' sound, then silence. Erik and Enaga did not reemerge from the room.
Tess stared at the closed door in dumb shock until she heard many footsteps running down the hall. The Senator or the secretary must have tripped the security alarm before being stripped of their senses by Erik's siren call. She shook herself and pulled her visor down, springing from the room and dashing past the self-hanged senator and out through the window, up the outside of the building and disappeared into the city.
She ran without thought or direction until her muscles screamed despite the support of the armor. She finally collapsed into an alley when the burning in her lungs would no longer be ignored. She shoved back the Primeglass covering her face and wiped fiercely at the tears blinding her. He hadn't even recognized her! Not a twitch, not a blink, nothing to signal that he had ever known her at all! Oh Erik, what have they done to you?
She swallowed back her sobs and stood up. She had no desire to attract attention from curious passers-by while sitting in a damp alley. She jammed the visor back in place and looked around. At first she had no clue where she was and began wandering up and down streets until she found a maglift train station with a map. She despised mass transportation, but there was no way she was going to walk all the way back to the docking station where she'd left the Ziggy Stardust; it would take hours. She purchased a token and sat down to wait for the next train.
What the hell was she going to do now? She should have grabbed Erik and run. She should have just shot that laughing bastard in the face, grabbed Erik and run like the fires of hell. Why had she just stood there like a moron? Stupid, stupid, stupid! She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't face him again, not that blank face and dull eyes and skeletal scarred body. He'd been thin before, when she'd last seen him, but now his eyes were truly sunken and his ribs and hip bones stood out in sharp relief, threatening to cut right through his soft, sallow skin. She'd never thought to compare him to a corpse before, but he had truly seemed of the living dead.
Her train roared into the station and she stepped on board. It was not especially crowded, now that it was nearly ten and the morning rush was beginning to wane, but she would not have had trouble gaining a seat even if it had been the height of the day's traffic. The few passengers near the entrance backed away from her at the sight of her armor and she flopped into a seat near the door. The ride back to the docking area took barely ten minutes on the sonic-speed train, even with the stops, and she almost didn't notice her stop in time to get off. She leapt through the doors just as they began to close and ran back to the Stardust.
Tess stripped off her armor quickly, haphazardly tossing the pieces onto the floor. She put the cloaking shield over the ship and piloted it across the massive city and beyond the outlaying suburbs towards the foothills that held the Ohtamacil estate. She landed the Stardust on Oro's front lawn, not caring in the slightest about the tree she destroyed in the process. She marched into manor as though she were on her way to her own funeral, going right past the servants without giving them time to question her. She realized she had no idea where anything in the expansive home was, and began to wander the halls, poking her head into door after door until she came upon Oro, bent over a datapad at the desk in his study. Oro did not look up when she stood behind his shoulder.
"I told you again, Shira, I am not hungry, thirsty or tired. Tell your mother to stop sending you in here and leave me in peace."
"Shira's not here, master."
Oro turned his head at the sound of the Hunter's quiet voice, hope springing to his face momentarily. The expression was replaced by sorrow when he took in Tess's look of defeat.
"You still have not found him."
Tess wrapped her arms around her ribs and shook her head and tried desperately not to cry. She failed miserably as the fat, hot tears that had been threatening since her flight from the Senate poured forth and she shook with violent sobs.
"I… I found… found him… He… he didn't… didn't… even reco-… recognize me!"
Oro stood and led Tess by the elbow to the couch, pushing at her until she sat. Unshed tears glistened in his own eyes, but he did not succumb to them as Tess had. He sat beside her and pulled her into an embrace, tucking her red face into his neck as she pulled at his tunic, bunching the cloth into her fists as though she would tear the material in half.
"I'm sorry. The Winds know I am sorry… How did it come to this, child? For a fortnight my life seemed complete, only to fall apart again…"
Tess sniffled loudly and swallowed against her sobs, regaining some measure of control and calm after her outburst. She pulled back against his embrace and he released her, allowing her to sit up straight and wipe her damp face in her shirtsleeves.
"I'm sorry, master… I never cry like this, I haven't since I was a little kid. I don't know what came over me--It's just so damned frustrating!"
"You need not apologize for honest tears, Tess. There is no shame in feeling sorrow over the loss of a friend."
"You should not be so kind to me. You sent me to retrieve Erik and I come back empty-handed. I should have just grabbed him and ran! I almost had him!"
Oro turned to gaze out of the window. He rubbed at his jaw and sighed.
"What's done is done, there's no use in berating yourself over it."
He turned back to face her, his expression turning suddenly serious.
"We will get him back, Tess. You saw him alive, and that eases my heart. Where there is life, there is hope. But we must get him away from those monsters, and soon. The longer they have him, the deeper he will bury his heart and soul, and if we do not act quickly he may stray too far from himself to come back… he may have already--but let's not think like that. We must keep hope!"
Oro stared intently at Tess, as though he could read something in her tear-stained face and mussed auburn hair.
"This task is beyond the reach of a solitary child, though, I'm afraid. It was wrong of me to place this burden solely on your shoulders, no matter how formidable your armor and reputation. I have a few contacts high in the Eranae military and friends in many of those of the neighboring systems. I do not care what the rest of the Eranae think of my half blooded grandson, and I think it is time we employed a little outside help, Endo's foolish fears be damned! It long overdue for the Hari Anuma to be brought to justice; they have plagued my homeworld long enough!"