“Good to know. Thank you.” She crossed to the panel and pressed a button. “Two nutrient waters, please.”
A hum sounded, then the panel slid aside to reveal two full bottles.
Simone grabbed them both and held one out to Valok. “Join me?”
He took the bottle and held it without drinking while he watched her sit on the bench that lined one wall. “For what purpose?”
She shrugged. “So I can pester you with more questions.”
He sat beside her, his posture rigidly correct.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into shooting me with a tronium blaster, could I?” She downed several swallows of water.
“Such a wound would draw notice and land me in the brig. I cannot perform my duties adequately while imprisoned.”
And duty was everything to the Yona.
She supposed she could understand that. What else was there when you had neither wants nor desires?
Simone watched him empty his bottle in a few strong swallows. “What’s it like?” she couldn’t resist asking when he finished.
“Getting shot with a blaster?” He set the bottle aside. “It is painful.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I guessed that much. I meant, what’s it like not to feel any emotion?” The concept was one she couldn’t grasp. As an empath, she had not only dealt with her feelings all her life. The emotions of others had also bombarded her.
“I have nothing to which I can compare it,” he stated.
When she had first encountered Yona warriors, she had thought them some kind of highly advanced robots. They were that emotionless. “Do you… regret not being able to feel emotion?” she asked softly.
He shook his head. “Regret is an emotion. Emotion is a weakness. Soldiers cannot adequately perform their duties when hampered by weakness.” He said it like a student reciting something a teacher had drilled into him over and over again.
Which had probably been the case.
“You have no curiosity? No desire to know what emotion feels like?”
“Emotion is a—”
“Weakness. Right. But that’s not necessarily true. On Earth, there have been instances in which emotion gave ordinary humans extraordinary strength and enabled them to do things they otherwise would not have been able to… like a father single-handedly lifting a car to free his son who had been hit and was trapped beneath it.” Not that he knew what a car was. “That would be the equivalent of Prince Taelon lifting one of those sleek black fighter craft I saw in the hangers if it had landed on Abby.”
Valok turned his head to scrutinize her. “Truly?”
“Yes. Love. Fear. A thirst for vengeance.” She smiled wryly. “Strong emotion can empower and drive you to do things you normally would not be capable of.”
For just an instant, she saw a flicker of something in his eyes, there and gone so quickly she couldn’t identify it.
She held out her hand. “Would you like to experience emotion?”
His gaze lowered to her hand, then returned to her face. “I am incapable of feeling emotion.”
“Not necessarily. I’m an empath. I don’t just feel other people’s emotions. I can also alter them, imbuing them with any emotion I choose.” Granted, she felt absolutely nothing when she was around the Yona. They truly did seem to be emotionless beings. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t give him a taste of her own. Or try to, anyway. “If nothing else, it might help you understand what motivates your non-Yona opponents.”
The last argument swayed him.
Valok rested his large, grayish hand atop hers.
Simone curled her fingers around his and debated what emotion she should start with.
It might be best to start with the positive and work her way back to the negative.
She thought of her friends here on the Kandovar. A smile curled her lips as warmth and affection flowed through her. She loved them all like sisters and was so glad she could share this adventure with them.
Valok’s eyes widened.
“You feel it?”
His lips parted. Within his muscled chest, his heart began to thump a little faster. “Yes. What is it?”
“Affection. When you love someone, nothing can make you leave them behind in battle. You will fight to the death for them.” Next, she thought of a practical joke Eliana had played on Ava the previous day. Amusement bubbled up inside her.
The corners of Valok’s eyes crinkled as his lips turned up in a smile. A rusty rumble burst forth from his mouth. His eyes widened even more as his fingers clamped down on hers. “What was that? I’ve never made that sound before.”
She chuckled. “That was a laugh. It happens when you’re amused or sometimes when you just feel happy.” He must have heard Lasarans laugh many times in the past but hadn’t recognized the sound when he made it himself.
An alarm began to blare, piercing her sensitive ears and startling her so much that her feet nearly flew up. “What the hell is that?” she called over it.
Valok leapt to his feet. “The ship’s alarm.”
Simone rose. “Is this a drill?”
“All crew members to battle stations,” a male called over the ship-wide speakers. “Repeat—all crew members to battle stations. We are under attack.”
Valok headed for the door. “It is not a drill.”
Simone followed him out of the training room. At one end of the corridor, bodies began to pour out of the larger, gym-sized training room like fans leaving a football stadium at the end of a game.
Valok turned the opposite way and took off jogging.
Simone accompanied him, her preternatural strength and speed enabling her to keep up with his longer strides without effort. “What’s happening? Who’s attacking us?”
He tapped his ear. “Valok reporting. What are my orders?”
Several booms echoed through the hallways as the ship shook.
Lasarans jogged past, seeming to know exactly where to go and what to do, while Simone floundered in uncertainty. This was a massive warship! Who the hell would attack it?
“Affirmative. On my way.” Valok turned a corner and headed toward the rear of the large ship.
“Where are you going?”
“Lasarans are launching their fighter craft. I will pilot one and join the fray.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
She staggered as the floor shook beneath her feet. “Fight who? Who’s attacking us?”
“Gathendiens.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she blurted as fury suffused her. Gathendiens had tried to commit genocide on Earth and Lasara. Now those bastards were trying to shoot them out of the sky? Or out of space? Or the wormhole or whatever?
“That did not translate,” he replied, evincing none of the fear, anger, or determination she saw on the faces of everyone else who raced around.
“Why are Gathendiens attacking us?”
“Unknown.”
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
“We’re still in the wormhole or qhov’rum thing. How is there even enough room to attack?” She still wasn’t sure how the qhov’rum worked but thought it was like being in a long narrow tube that shot you forward at incredible speeds.
“The qhov’rum leaves little room to maneuver. You should get your people to the escape pods.”