The driver of the Khieevi ship designated Fourteen Klaclu am) Two KLiclu was not, as his non-Khleevi enemies sometimes presumed, incapable of independent thought and action. Quite the contrary. The driver, now trying to control the ship with only five feet, having sacrificed his sixth, knew that once he rejoined the other Khieevi, he -would not last long.
When the main swarm discovered the true home of the OneHorns and began bombarding it, the driver was so dismayed he sent an extra jolt of energy to the Young. His wonderful capture, so fortunately come by and so willingly carried to the Young, was about to be rendered insignificant by the might of the swarm. Unless, of course, he and his fellow strag glers delivered their contribution to the diet of the Young before the swarm was able to return with captives.
Some of the other stragglers were little more than dead weight. There had been six of them in his limb originally and he knew for certain that three of the ships no longer contained living personnel. No one was at the com units, and the ships were guided only by the tractor beams attached to the captive vessel from Fourteen Klaclu an() Two Klickd and the other two vessels whose crews still contained some living members.
The only comfort that the driver had was that he knew many of the ships in the swarm were as badly off as his own – as the others of his limb. The communications he received, and ignored, were quite often disordered and nonsensical and he suspected that only the structure of the swarm kept many of the ships in place.
Fourteen Klacfu ano Two Klic/u would not remain in place. It sped, with as much momentum as possible pulling one alien and three Khieevi vessels plus two others whose drivers, he suspected, were suffering more of the effects of contaminated shuttle soldiers than him, toward the homeworld and the Young.
As the bombardment of narhiiVhiliinyar continued, so did Acorna’s healing duties.
The first to show the long-range effects of the damage done to the Linyaari was Aari’s mother. Miiri, gathering sap on the vine world, grew more and more distracted and incoherent. Kaarlye said she was receiving telepathic signals from the homeworld, reading the suffering of her people. The time came when she cried out and fainted, falling face forward into a lake of sap. By the time they pulled her out, she had nearly suffocated.
Acorna, Neeva, Melireenya, and Khaari, as well as Kaarlye, all laid horns on Miiri to revive her. But the physical effect of her fall was not what caused her to thrash and cry out in her unconsciousness.
“This is how she was while Aari was a prisoner,” Kaarlye said.
“I don’t see why,” Liriili said. “She’s no good to anyone that way.”
But as time wore on, and reports were relayed back along the supply channels of the fires in the fields, the decimation of the cities, the saturation bombing of the planet’s surface, the bad news took its toll. First Melireenya, then Khaari, then Neeva and finally Kaarlye himself began to succumb to the disorientation and panic that had marked Miiri’s decline in health.
Even Aari attempted to use his newly grown horn to soothe his parents and the Balakiire crew. He had no more luck than the others.
Acorna had not lived on narhiiVhiliinyar long enough to develop a bond strong enough to affect her the way it did the others, but she missed Calum, and Maati, Grandam, Hafiz, and even Karina. Not to mention all of the children she had helped to rise from slavery only for them to fall victim to a more deadly peril. Jana would be taking care of the others now, she knew, and Maati would help. So would Thariinye, -who was not a bad sort, just a bit callow sometimes.
Calum had helped raise her and at times had been her closest friend. If she -were to bond with anyone out there, she thought, it would be with him. But she felt nothing from him. Nothing. Unfortunately, the hardheaded Caledonian, while as pragmatic and ingenious as the best of his race, had not fallen heir to their more magical qualities.