The Master Key

by T. K. Toppin

  Numbers and letters and diagrams flitted by the projected screen as information downloaded rapidly. Ho was ecstatic. He clutched the sides of the table, squealing with laughter.

  “It is here. It is all here. At long last, I have it!” Ho clapped his hands. “I have it, at last!”

  Without thinking, without even considering the outcome, I reacted. I swung out impulsively, forgetting I even had my krima tucked away at my wrist. My fist struck Ho on the side of his head. The suddenness of the attack caught him off guard and he staggered sideways in shock, blinking fast.

  Lee’s response was swift, catching me square in the face. I jerked back, falling onto James. Aline dipped low and kicked Lee in the gut. Lee made a guttural grunt as he buckled. A mean glare glinted across his eyes. They eyed each other. Round two, it said.

  Ho, regaining his wits, extracted a knife from his jacket. He took aim at whoever was nearest—in this case, Aline. He let it fly. It nicked her arm just as she turned to dodge it, before clattering uselessly to the floor.

  I tried to retrieve the knife, but James had my arms pinned. He hissed a warning in my ear as I struggled and blindly struck out at him.

  Aline had already leapt through the air, as did Lee. They collided in mid-air like two rutting stags locking horns. Crashing to the floor, they wrestled and grunted, rolling in a deadly ballet for control.

  With a twist, I turned and elbowed James in the face. He made an angry noise and, in a blur of movement, brought the side of his hand across my ribs. The blow knocked the air out of me and sent me flailing across the floor.

  Gasping for breath, I curled inward for a moment, then remembered my krima. I dug at my wrist and was about to whip it out and fling myself at James when a sharp rap across my head had my world going fuzzy and jittering with bright colors. I tried to focus and turned to see. I was barely able to make out a shape that looked like Ho, who hauled his arm back to give me another swipe across my head. I brought up my own arm in reflex, waiting for the blow to come down. It never did. When I risked another bleary peek, James was holding Ho’s arm and speaking to him.

  And then my world sputtered and went dark.

  * * *

  Surrey never thought himself to be a hero, nor did he think to be particularly brave. He did what was expected of him because he believed that to do his job, and do it well, was the greatest honor a person could give to those he’d been charged to protect and defend. His duty was to the Lancasters, the Citadel, the citizens within, and the world at large. And if it meant he died while protecting and defending them, he would gladly do so and think nothing of it. In fact, if he didn’t die, he would be offended but grateful he could live another day to serve those he’d been charged with.

  In his head he composed music and, when he had time, would give birth to that music on his antique harp. His thick, callused fingers would move across the fine strings with amazing grace and dexterity.

  When Simon gave him the order to return to the Citadel—as soon as possible and by whatever means he could—he did as he was told without question. And as he walked the underbelly of the Scrap Yard to access the docking bays through a series of crawl spaces and air ducts, the music coursed through his head with orchestral precision. It rose to great crescendos, skipped to allegros and slowed to andantes.

  Surrey never did anything in haste, yet he was never sloth in his movements. He always thought things through, using his music and logic to keep time and pace. And when he fought in combat, his actions were direct, precise, and accurate—and with a tinge of regret. He didn’t like fighting, but, like his music, he was good at it. Without one, the other didn’t exist. They went hand in hand. As a boy growing up on the rough streets of inner-city Hong Kong, he’d fought because of his music. He’d been teased and bullied because of his love of the classics. He’d learned to survive, to dodge, beat, and sometimes kill the thugs that lurked the streets between home and his music. To him, music and survival were one. There was no separation. Life in the military was the platform for his orchestra to perform on, and the psych evaluation confirmed what many thought: that he skirted the high end of the autism spectrum.

  He stole onboard a small single-manned shuttle docked in one of the emergency escape chambers that lined the perimeter of the docking bays. With stealth, he manually ejected from the station without detection, programmed the coordinates and, heaving the controls to full throttle, bolted back to Earth.

  He was fifty-eight minutes into his return trip when he saw the massive gunship heading straight for the Scrap Yard. Surrey considered the odds. The music in his head hushed to a slow, rhythmic adagio accompanied by a mournful aria. The sight of the gunship filled him with utter despair.

  It would take him almost a full day to return to Earth, given the small size of the shuttle. The gunship would reach the Scrap Yard in less than twenty minutes. Chances were no one knew it was coming except those trying to take control of the space station.

  And him.

  If he could duck under its radar and steal aboard, it would save everyone the trouble of having to deal with it, considering how everyone’s hands were full. After he sabotaged the gunship and, if he lived, he could then continue on to the Citadel, where his president needed him. That was, after all, the logical thing to do.

  With a crash of cymbals and a change of pace, Surrey made up his mind and maneuvered the tiny craft until it was right beneath the massive ship. He aimed a harpoon towline, fired it, then killed the engine. Once the harpoon embedded in its mark, he flipped a switch on the cockpit dashboard and towed himself in slowly.

  He was surprised the gunship hadn’t noticed him, but then they were probably busy concentrating on getting to the space station as quickly as possible. A brief, tiny blimp on their radars was nothing of importance. They might think it was a bit of space junk that got sucked up in its wake. He hoped they thought so. With deft skill, Surrey aligned the craft until it locked itself to one of the ship’s holding bays, where it was then scooped inside into an inner holding dock and sealed off from the outside.

  So far, so good.

  He hoped no one had registered the bay door opening. He also hoped this particular holding bay would not be used to deploy their fighter jets once they were within range of the station. Normally, these bays were for garbage and recycling, but it wasn’t uncommon for some gunships to use them to hold additional fighter jets.

  He put the music on pause and opened the cockpit, it hissed, released, and popped open. All was quiet. If, indeed, they stored additional fighter jets beyond the service doors, he’d be the first to find out. There was absolutely no way he could avoid being rammed into oblivion once those doors opened up and the jets scrambled.

  Chapter 25

  My head spun. I reached up to touch the sore spot and felt a knot. Whatever Ho had used to hit me, it had been something assuredly hard and unforgiving.

  A groan spilled out of my mouth as nausea pitched inside me. I swallowed hard and brought the hand from my head to my mouth. My nose hurt too, where Lee had smacked me in the face. It felt twice its normal size.

  Whether it was the knock on my head or the time-out in blackness that brought me to my senses, I wasn’t sure, but I felt like an idiot. I’d acted impulsively and foolishly, putting myself, Aline, and even the unsuspecting Dr. Maines, in serious danger. Everything I’d learned and been taught to do in times of danger, I’d thrown clean out the window.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, but it was long enough. When I could finally focus and get my bearings, I was piled up in a corner with Aline. She sat on her heels next to me, both hands resting on her knees; the fighting ready-stance while sitting. With a bloodied face, her mood was sour. Dry blood caked over her left arm where the knife had nicked it.

  She gave me a considering look that made me feel worse.

  “Sorry,” I croaked.

  “As I said before,” Aline said through clenched teeth, curling her lips in a manner so reminiscent of John
’s that it was kind of scary, “it is never a dull moment with you. If you had waited a few more minutes, that creature called Lee would have assisted Ho, and they would have been distracted. Consider yourself lucky the Rogue used his head and stopped Ho from slicing yours off with his krima.”

  The final bits came back to me.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. I lost it.”

  The Rogue stood before us at an angle, so he could observe us as well as what Ho and Lee were doing. They were packing up their gear. Ho had just slipped something into his breast pocket. There was an odd expression on his face, like he’d eaten something bad. Lee bled from a gash on his face and dabbed at it with the back of his hand every so often.

  “By the way, the Rogue, James,” I whispered. “He gave me back my krima.”

  Aline whipped her head to me with a full-on glower. “So why the hell did you not use it?” she hissed.

  “I…forgot.”

  She made a resigned noise.

  “James, I think he’s trying to help. Don’t ask me why, but he is.”

  “He’s still on Ho’s payroll. Do not trust him and kill him the first chance you get. Do you understand? He is a Rogue and they only help themselves or the ones that pay them, providing it was so stated in their contracts.”

  I nodded with some reservation. The idea of killing James didn’t feel altogether right, but Aline knew more about Rogues and their temperaments than I did. Who was I to argue with that? I’d already done some fairly stupid things as it was. I promised myself to follow Aline’s lead and behave. But I couldn’t help myself.

  On impulse—again—I called out to Ho. “How do you plan on getting past security?” I made an attempt to stand. My world swayed.

  Distracted, he snapped his attention to me, then pushed past James and stared at me, the weird expression still on his face. He seemed…spooked.

  “The alarms have stopped, or did you not hear? My men have overpowered the security—I’ve just received word. We have a clear path back to the shuttle. Your luck will keep you alive long enough to get us out.” He glanced at James. “Be ready in five.”

  With that spooked look, Ho started to turn, paused, and then stared at me. “It would appear we are more closely related than we realized.”

  “Do tell,” I inched forward a bit by pretending to stretch my stiff neck. Aline rose to her feet and I noted James stepping back a pace. Yes, he was helping!

  Ho smiled. “Our dear Dr. Zara Soz…” he paused as if uncertain how to continue. “She left us a message. I’ve only just watched it.”

  “And?” I prompted—another step closer—and brought my hands before me, clasping them innocently as though I were about to receive a pat on the head.

  In a rare moment of uncertainty, Ho rubbed a hand over his brow and frowned.

  “She is—was, your niece,” he said. “Fern.”

  I heard him the first time but blinked anyway. He was lying through his small little teeth. To what purpose, I didn’t know. And I wasn’t about to be fooled by him twice. Margeaux’s betrayal had gouged me like barbed wire over my bare skin. How stupid did he think I was?

  “Nice try.” I snarled, and with that, whipped out my krima, engaged it, dropped low, then jabbed.

  Ho jerked backward in surprise. My krima caught the end of his jacket—it hissed and smoldered. He spun, reaching into his pocket for his own krima, engaged it and there we stood, face to face, brandishing our weapons between us.

  A blur of movement told me Aline had already launched herself at James and tumbled to the floor with him. With a loud smack, James’ head cracked sideways as her foot used it—how? I don’t know—as a jumping pad to piston her straight into Lee.

  From where I stood, Aline looked like a nimble gazelle, leaping from figurative rock to figurative rock, aligning her body into an arrow as she dove into Lee, fists out before her like a diver, and slammed into his chest. He cried out in winded pain and fell. She somersaulted off, landed on her feet, snatched up a chair and brought it down on his unsuspecting head in seconds. The crack was loud and solid, the result…effective. Blood was just starting to spurt in rhythmic pulses from a gaping rupture in Lee’s forehead when his eyes rolled up into his head and filled with blood. A single finger on his left hand trembled into a rictus curl, then froze.

  Ho spared a quick look at his dead body-assistant as we circled each other like dancers. James, shaking his head to clear it, closed in on Aline. She held the chair before her like a weapon, daring him to make a move.

  “I should have killed both of you earlier,” Ho hissed. “Consider yourself fired, James.” He flicked his gaze to the Rogue. “You have proven to be useless!” Then he glared at my krima.

  James stopped mid-way, comically, and looked back at Ho with a crooked smile. “I was given a better offer.”

  “By whom?” Ho spat.

  “Madam Lancaster, of course. We had much to chat about while we waited for you at the hotel.”

  “Did you now?”

  I played along. “It’s true. Never trust a Rogue.”

  Ho seemed distracted enough, so I lurched forward with my krima. He hopped away and swung his full-length krima at me. I cursed and dodged to the side, feeling the air crackle beside me. I didn’t stand a chance with his full-length compared to my micro-sized pocket version. What was I thinking? It was like trying to fight a mammoth with tweezers.

  Speed. That was it! I had to move fast so he couldn’t pinpoint me. I leaped sideways again, hopped over a desk and brought it between us, then jumped up, kicked out, and sent the desk shooting across to Ho. He stopped it with his foot, did a sort of upward thrust, a twirl, and sailed over the desk, swinging the krima in a wide arc. It clipped my overcoat right by the collar before I had a chance to back-flip away. The smell of burning fabric stung my nostrils.

  That was too close. I ran left, pulling chairs, tables, equipment, and whatever else I could grab in my wake. Ho was in pursuit, feet away, jumping the obstacles I knocked over with ease.

  “Give it up, Josie,” he called out. “I am too strong for you. Too fast!”

  In desperation, I threw a stack of vials at him. He deflected them with a shrug and glass broke like transparent snow about him. From the corner of my eye, I saw Aline and James circling warily. Aline still held the chair, but James didn’t seem to want to engage.

  Ho leaped over a fallen piece of equipment. I vaulted up and over a low glass partition and scrambled over a desk. Bottles and vials rattled and fell to the floor. I’d run out of places to go soon. Turning, I saw Ho smash his way through the glass, swinging again with his krima. In panic, I yelped and ducked.

  Up again, leapfrogging backward, I dodged another attack. His krima hit a metal cabinet and sparks and stray beams showered over me, peppering my face and hands with stinging hot embers. Again he swung his krima out. It made a low whining noise as it glanced off some shelving and then hissed as it came down across the front of my coat. I pushed back wildly, my own krima useless in my hand, and crashed hard against a wall.

  Ho moved in for the kill, I lashed out in blind desperation; he roared in pain and staggered back, bloody murder in his eyes. I’d somehow managed to swipe him across his right thigh. It wasn’t deep, but I could tell it had hurt him; the fabric around it was smoking, the ripped edges black with char.

  Without wasting another second, I bolted up and kicked. My foot connected to his hand, which snapped out to block it. Twisting in mid-air, I dived across the floor, ignoring the broken glass slicing my palms. Rolling away until I was on all fours, Ho a short distance away, I scrambled for safety. To my right was the opening to one of the vaults. It was large and deep, but there would be nowhere to hide. To my left, Aline and James were still squaring off.

  Safety in numbers, I thought, and flung myself toward them at a dead run, hurdling over upturned chairs and tables. Something hit me smack in the center of my back. It took the air out of my lungs and dropped me like a dead weight to the floor. Rolli
ng over, writhing in pain, I barely registered which way was up.

  And then an explosion ripped through the air, blasting us with scorching air, hot enough to singe the hair on my skin. I shrieked and curled into a tight ball, imagining my skin puckering and bubbling like pork crackling.

  It seemed like ages before the air cooled. Tiny cracking and popping noises were everywhere, then an urgent gurgling, followed by a pressurized hiss as jets of icy cold water blasted us from overhead.

  Someone shouted—a frantic bellow. I recognized the voice in an instant.

  John!

  Something grabbed my hair, hauling me to my feet. Through the pelting water, I saw the light of the krima—my krima—close to my face. I froze.

  “Come any nearer and I will kill her,” Ho snarled from behind me.

  John resembled a caged wild animal let loose without having been fed. The water poured from above. He kept his head low, dangerous, shoulders bunched, ready for the pounce. He spared me one quick look, then directed his unblinking feral eyes at Ho.

  “Release her,” he hissed, “and I might let you live.”

  Ho laughed, the laser end of the krima shaking with him. I sucked in the squeak that wanted to escape from my lips, imagining for a moment what it would feel like if that lethal end touched my face.

  “You might let me live,” Ho replied. “How very considerate of you.”

  Nearby, there was a commotion. It sounded as if Aline had belched out orders to someone. I couldn’t hear what, nor did I care.

  “It’s too late, John,” I mumbled. “He’s got it already. The code—he’s got it. He doesn’t need me anymore. I’m dead already.”

  “Be quiet, Josie,” John said without taking his eyes off Ho. “You need her to get out of here. You’ve no shuttle left—I made sure of it. Give it up, Ho. You can’t escape.”

  “Then I’ll just have to use yours,” Ho chuckled.

  His heart thumped against my back, steady and even despite our tense situation. Now I knew for certain the man was insane. Mine, however, crashed against my chest, doing back flips and somersaults. No matter how hard I tried to force it to calm down, it refused.