Waking Dream [Tales of the Citadel 23] Read Free Page A

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    Vecho sat in the command chair and felt the prickle along his senses.
    Grandfather, I am back.
    He fought not to jolt in his chair as Wiyra’s voice whispered behind his shields. Are you safe?
    I am. There is a Citadel tracker who is making his way onto the platform as we speak. He is coming to help us, but he is outnumbered. Can we help him?
    Of course, child. We were only waiting for you. Watch out for the one with the fangs. He’s an Uhn.
    Does he know about Grandma?
    Vecho smiled and said. I did not feel it necessary to tell him.
    Wiyra’s laughter filled his mind. I will tell him that you are about to move.
    Excellent. Glad to have you aboard, Wiyra. We were worried.
    You can remain worried. The tracker is Burin.
    Vecho’s grin caught the attention of one of the men guarding him. A scowl was all that the guard gave him, so Vecho alerted his grandchildren and the platform workers to the fact that Wiyra was back and safe. Sighs of relief filled the platform and weapons were lifted. The attackers had taken them by surprise, but they had been held back by the knowledge that the Waking Dream was loose, and she would need to find her home safe and in one piece if she could reintegrate with her body.
    The moment the attack came, her pod had dropped into the slag pit. It was the only mechanism that they had come up with, and it had never been needed before today. The fact that it had worked was a great triumph for all of the members on the platform. They would all give their lives to keep her safe, but it was a relief that they didn’t have to.
    Vecho faced the fact that if Wiyra had gone to Burin, she would be leaving them, but she would be leaving them by choice and not under duress at the hands of savages. It was time for her to start her own life, but her family would always be there for her provided that they could make it through this adventure intact.
     
    * * * *
     
    Wiyra scooted down in her pod and unclipped the breather. She pulled the mask over her face, and once it was settled, she removed her drip feeds. She knew that two things would happen when she blew the pod. The first thing that would happen was that her body would start to freeze. The second thing would be that the intruders would come running when the pod no longer insulated her heat signature.
    Moving fast was out of the question, so she breathed slow and deep until she was confident in her coordination. She went into a foetal curl and slammed her fist into the emergency release that had enough strength to shift the slag that was on top of her pod.
    The blast rattled her teeth, but she uncurled and left the pod as quickly as she could. Three hard falls to the floor later, she managed to hit the exit lock and stagger in to let the decontamination field run over her.
    She shivered and counted down from twenty as the beams scorched over her suit, removing traces of mineral slag from her baggy jumper. Wiyra moved into the hall the moment the lock opened, and she stripped off her mask, chucking it back in the cleansing chamber.
    She could hear footsteps approaching, so she went up. She climbed the riveted ladder, eased open the maintenance hatch and slipped inside. When she had been a child, it had been a game to creep silently in the tunnels and evade detection. It was now worth more than dessert to not get caught.
    Her hair was bound tightly to her head, and it snagged on a few rough pieces of metal as she crept quietly through the tunnels on her hands and knees. It was a lot easier when she was ten.
    She kept moving for half an hour before she left her body to check her relative position in the ship. Her astral form stuck its head down and confirmed that she was near the command deck.
    Back in her body, she resumed her slow crawl into the space above the command deck. Once there, she lay flat and let her astral form out to explore the situation in her least visible mode.
    Two intruders were lying dead at her grandfather’s feet, and he was