“I can dampen the effect in my immediate vicinity, but that’s the extent of what I can offer.”
“So we have to get our hands on the controllers the guards have.” Jill saw confusion on Gabe’s face and she explained, “The Badari all wear these neurobracelets the Khagrish can use to paralyze or inflict pain, up to and including death. The Khagrish put one on me but it never worked and eventually my body rejected it, which hurt like hell.” She extended her arm and displayed the scar.
“Even the children are forced to wear these devices?” Lily asked in a near whisper.
“Yeah, these Khagrish aren’t any better than their Chimmer masters. Another reason to show no mercy, shoot to kill the bastards.” Hands on her hips, Jill challenged Gabe. “We done with planning mode? I’m ready to move out.”
“How are we going in?” Flo asked.
“Not the shaft from the ruins,” Gabe said before Jill could speak. “I know you and MARL haven’t seen any indications in the AI reports that the shaft’s been discovered, much less checked or booby trapped, but I’ve got a bad feeling about trying to use it a third time. How dumb can these Khagrish be?”
“So where do you plan to make a breach? The front door?” Jill knew she sounded pugnacious, but she was far from convinced her private way in and out was unsafe. All this talk, even as necessary as advance planning was, tore at her nerves, knowing Aydarr was in danger. From the one time I saw her, Dr. Cwamla was ruthless and every bit as cruel as Dr. Gahzhing. Time was definitely at a premium.
Gabe walked to the rotating map. “MARL, hold this steady, would you? And now add the external perimeter.”
Jill pointed at the preserve outlined in bright blue. “This area is cordoned off by a force field.”
“Which I’m guessing your friend here can disrupt. Am I right?”
“I can eliminate the field in its entirety via command routed through the lab’s AI or I can make a temporary, smaller void in the coverage with my own fields.” MARL’s answer was prompt as always.
Gabe raised his hands in a ‘see there’ gesture. “MARL makes a void, we slip inside from a direction the Khagrish won’t be expecting and the element of surprise is definitely on our side.”
Jill turned to her sister. “Lilly, you’ll have to stay here. I’m sorry but you’re not fully recovered yet.”
“I’d slow you down too much—I get it.” Her sister swallowed hard and gave Jill a tiny smile. “I’ll be fine. I can hide in the cavern if anyone comes while you’re gone.”
Jill gave her a hug. “Waiting is the hardest part, I know. But when we do start shuttling survivors to the valley, can you take charge? Get them organized? I know I’m asking a lot—”
A big smile on her face, Lily shook her head. “No, it’s a great idea. After all, if I could organize the school on Amarcae7, I can certainly keep this place in order till you get back. And you did say some of the Badari are children, right?”
“Not like human children though. These poor kids have been raised to be super soldiers, killers. But when Aydarr took me to meet them, they were polite and well mannered.” Jill stood tall. “I’m their alpha, after all, in Aydarr’s absence and I’ll warn them to treat my sister and her orders with respect.” She looked at the three ex-Special Forces soldiers. “Gear up and meet me at the goat track to the summit in ten. I want to make damn good time before the sun sets.”
With a sardonic grin on his face, Gabe snapped a salute and his two team mates followed suit. “We’ll be there.” Pivoting smoothly, he and the others took off at a trot for the cave they’d selected as their own dwelling.
Lily walked over to Jill and gave her a big hug. “Be careful, big sister. And bring Megan, okay?”
“You got it, I give you my word.” Making herself sound more confident than she felt, given the odds against them, Jill patted her sister’s shoulder before moving off to the cave to get her gear. Megan, Aydarr, the pack, the kids—all depending on me, whether they know it or not. I’m not failing any of them this time.
CHAPTER TEN
The Badari pack’s return to captivity in the lab was more or less normal on the face of it. Aydarr and his men jogged from the landing pad to their cell under double the usual guard. Dismayed. he stopped on the threshold as soon as he realized the room was empty, no sign of Jill. “Where’s my mate? What have you done with her?”
“Get in the cell with the others, 801, or I’ll thin the herd right now.” The guard captain gave him a shove with his weapon and amped up the pain from the nerve controller to emphasize his point. “You have no mate—she’s dead.”
“Dead?” The world tilted unsteadily for Aydarr as he tried to assimilate the information, talons and fangs displayed as rage erupted in his heart. He wanted to rend Jill’s murderers into bleeding fragments. “You killed her?”
Mateer and Reede held him back as he instinctively tried to lunge for the guard, pain or no pain.
The energy barrier sizzled into existence and the guards stood safely outside, in the corridor. The squad marched away but the captain lingered. “Dr. Gahzhing did personal uh research on your little human, 801, at the end of which I’m told she was dead and he was in a coma. Don’t know exactly what happened. Cwamla’s in charge now and I know she’s always had a special interest in you. We’ll be conducting you to her lab soon enough. Better conserve your strength.” And with that bit of sarcastic advice, the Khagrish sauntered off after his men.
With difficulty, given the killing rage he was in, Aydarr’s enforcers steered him into the alpha’s alcove, past the members of the pack, who stood in silence.
“I’m sorry to hear of Jill’s death,” Mateer said, being the only person brave enough to speak. “She must have fought well, to leave Gahzhing so badly injured.”
“Small comfort. I hate to think what she must have suffered at his hands before she died.” Aydarr sank onto the cot, head in his hands. “Something about the story doesn’t ring true to me, however. Even though she was a soldier of her people, how could she have managed to put him into a coma, yet nonetheless died herself?”
“Unless he underestimated her at a critical juncture,” Reede said. “She was smart.”
“True.”
“Could she have taken her own life after downing Gahzhing?” Mateer asked. “Rather than surrender to the Khagrish? Such an act would fit with her brave nature.”
Aydarr rubbed his forehead. “I can’t accept the death of my mate. I refuse to accept that answer.”
The silence after his pronouncement stretched long before Mateer switched subjects. “Have you any instructions for us? If you’re to be taken to Cwamla’s lab, I need to know what you want us to do—”
“Do your best to survive,” was the most Aydarr could find in his heart to say. “Try to convince them you deserve another chance at proving the worthiness of our DNA strain. Argue the case for our mission failure being all my fault. Then if the Khagrish take you offworld for another mission, rebel and escape. Or die trying.”
“And the cubs and cadets left here?” Mateer said sorrowfully.
He raised his head to meet his enforcer’s gaze. “Can you think of anything we can do to aid them?”
“In truth, I cannot. If we’ve reached the end point, where only one strain will be allowed to continue, then nothing we do, or Jamokan and his pack does, will save any of us.”
“You think the Tzibir will win then?” Reede asked them both.
Aydarr nodded. “They’ve been the ones taken the farthest from the source. The most willing to carry out drastic orders.”
“I heard the guards talking when I was going under the cryo, after the mission,” Mateer said. “Apparently the Tzibir were told to conduct a massacre at a shelter, a site similar to the one where we escorted our targets to safety instead of carrying out our own orders. The Tzibir left no one alive.”
Praytem rushed to the edge of the alcove. “Excuse me, sir, the guards are coming.”
“Thank you for t
he warning.” Aydarr rose from the cot and walked toward the cell’s muster line, near the door. He motioned for the other pack members to stay back. “No need to alarm the guards. It’s me they’re coming for.”
He offered no resistance as the guards dragged him from the cell, activating the bracelet to cause him to fall helplessly to the cold floor so he could be placed in cuffs and shackles. As if the deadly effects of the bracelet weren’t enough to ensure his obedience to their commands. Aydarr suspected the guard captain wished to humiliate him in front of his pack, but he didn’t care what they did. Jill was dead, his pack soon would be as well, victims of more pointless experiments. He himself probably had several days of torture to endure before Cwamla killed him.
The guards brought him to the scientist in her personal quarters and lab.
He stood at attention while she looked him over, her two assistants behind her. Baring his fangs, he said, “If I wasn’t chained, I’d kill you.”
“But you are, like the animal we all know you to be.” Idly, she played with the buttons on the bracelet controller, sending waves of pain through his nerve endings. Gritting his teeth, he managed to remain on his feet for a few moments, pride lending him strength.
“You are a tough one,” Cwamla said in an admiring tone as she increased the pain. “But I hold all the power here.”
Aydarr went to one knee, then collapsed as she sent the device into the intolerable range. He was unable to stop the convulsions burning through his nervous system.
“Take him into the lab,” she said, standing aside and reducing the level of agony.
He was carried into the next room, stripped, and placed on a cold metal lab table. He made a futile attempt to resist as he was restrained and blindfolded and although he had the satisfaction of sending one guard reeling with fatal wounds clawed in his belly and another slammed against the wall with his neck broken, Aydarr was eventually secured as the scientist ordered.
There were sounds of footsteps as the guards left the room. He could scent only Cwamla now, and she came to stand beside the table, running her hand along his arm and over his bare chest. “I’m actually not sorry you screwed up your mission,” she said, “Since it gives me a chance to play. You were off-limits for the more serious fun as long as there was a chance your DNA strain might win. Now no one cares what happens to you, and I’ve had a long time to imagine games we can play.” She stroked her hand in lazy motions down his abdomen. “Please me and I might let you live. For a while.”
Aydarr fought the restraints and snapped at her, his fangs and talons deploying. “Your people killed my mate. I’ll rip your fucking heart out if I get the chance.”
Cwamla leaned close, but out of reach of his teeth. “If you’d told me you wanted a mate, I could have set up an experiment, a personal experiment, tested the Khagrish-Badari connection.” She patted his wrist, held locked in the unyielding restraint.
He slashed the table with his extended talons, the claws making a terrible screeching sound on the metal, but couldn’t reach her.
“A tightly controlled experiment, of course.” Cwamla sounded breathless, as if his anger excited her. I’d have had to make my assistants watch us closely, to ensure you didn’t kill me, but that might have added to the…pleasure.”
“I’d rather die than fuck you,” he said.
“Oh, you’ll die all right, but not until I’m good and ready to declare the experiment over. I want to hear you beg me for mercy.”
“I’ll never beg you for anything.”
“You will.” Her voice was confident. “I have years of data about the Badari pleasure and pain responses to work with, remember? And I’ve devised new ideas to test that the sponsor will appreciate. It’ll take my techs a little time to bring in the right gear, get you hooked up, so take my advice, rest for now. Save your strength.”
One more fleeting caress then she was gone, the sound of her high heels diminishing as she left the lab.
Aydarr made sure he’d closed the psychic link with his men. The pack didn’t need to know any of this, much less to feel his pain once Cwamla started her ‘experiments’. Controlling his breathing, trying to gather inner strength for what was undoubtedly to come, he wished briefly the Badari abilities included the gift of dying at will. He’d love to cheat Cwamla of the pleasure she was anticipating from torturing him. But even as the concept flickered through his mind, he resisted. The Badari way was to fight, talon and fang, until death triumphed over mortal efforts, and he intended to die as he’d lived, never accepting defeat.
He filled his mind with memories of Jill, and their short time together. He refused to give in to regret at being denied a full lifetime together. Better to have known a true love, had a true mate even for a brief time than not to know the joy she brought me. If there is an afterlife for such as me, I hope we’re together.
Aydarr was constantly on Jill’s mind during the day of hard marching from the valley toward the lab, although thoughts of her missing sister were equally compelling. I have to save both of them, or die in the attempt.
Finally Jill and her three human comrades sat clustered in a tight formation just outside the force field, staring at the rear of the brightly lit lab in the darkness of night. Jill swallowed hard, remembering that day so long ago she’d been standing on the black line with Aydarr and he’d claimed her as his mate to save her life. “Time for you to do your magic, MARL .”
Glowing softly, the AI said, “I’ve replaced the visual feed of this portion of preserve and the rear entrance in the AI’s systems with a loop showing no activity.” He floated to the invisible edge of the force field and kept going. Void has been created. Follow me.
Jill scrambled after MARL, Gabe and the others on her heels. She ran full tilt to the lab doors, which she and MARL had determined were electronically locked. MARL ordered the AI to unseal the lock and the door panels parted under Jill’s hand with a hiss. The Khagrish were lax, concentrating the guards primarily in the prisoner areas and patrolling the corridors at what were supposed to be regular intervals. In actual fact, according to MARL’s scans of the data, the guards had gotten lazy, patrolling half-heartedly and skipping entire sections of the perimeter more often than not. The commander placed an over reliance on one person sitting in a central location, watching scans, to maintain vigilance on the exterior. MARL was sending false information to the guard’s console. Heart hammering in her chest, Jill provided cover as the other three made it through the door.
Gabe nodded to her. “Go get your guys,” he said on the subvocal channel. “Meet us at the armory as soon as you can. Time isn’t our friend on this mission.”
MARL at her heels, she sprinted through the halls toward the prisoner wing. He told her when to duck to avoid a guard patrol and, once the squad passed and moved safely away, she burst through the door into the cell block, firing with pinpoint accuracy at two guards lingering by the entrance. The aliens both collapsed in lifeless heaps on the floor.
“I’ve locked down the entire wing,” MARL said, “No one can get in or out but us. The main desk is only seeing my vidcom loop.”
Jill shoved her weapon onto her shoulder by the strap and knelt to snatch the bracelet controller and the cell key card from the closest guard’s belt. She ran along the hall to the pack’s cell, which was the first. As she slid to a stop, the astounded pack cheered as they rose from their positions at the table in such haste the men knocked over the chairs. Mateer led the way to the entrance as she disengaged the force barrier.
“Lords of Space, it’s good to see you.” She hugged him. “We’re here to get you out, but there isn’t much time. Let me get these damn bracelets off first.”
Mateer took a blaster from Reede, who’d sprinted to the fallen guards as soon as the entrance barrier disappeared and snatched the remaining weapons. The enforcer kept the second one for himself. Extending his arm for her to touch the controller to the bracelet, Mateer said, “Who’s ‘we’? How did you get away? W
e were told you were dead.”
“Aydarr thinks I’m dead?” She kept working, taking the bracelets off each member of the pack. “Never mind, the Khagrish lied about me, obviously. What happened to him on your mission?”
“He refused to follow orders to kidnap women and children for more experiments,” Mateer said. “We rescued the targets and escorted them out of danger instead. He surrendered to the Khagrish in hopes we, the cadets—and you—might be spared. But we were all marked as a failed DNA line.”
“I know. I found the notation in the AI’s files, but no details. Come on, we have to get moving.”
Mateer caught her wrist gently with his massive hand. “We’re sworn to follow your orders and we will, but I need to know what’s going on—the entire situation.”
“Fair enough but we don’t have much time.” The pack gathered around her as she gave them a rapid rundown of how she’d escaped, found MARL then rescued her sister, Gabe and his team. “Now I need to free Jamokan’s pack, if you think he’ll join with us, take my orders?”
Mateer nodded. “I’ve been communicating with him while you talked. He’s prepared to swear loyalty to you if you free him and his men. They were declared a failed DNA line as well so he’ll do anything to save his pack.”
She wished things weren’t so personal with the Badari, as far as loyalty to her. Who was she to be giving orders to two packs? The situation could become even more complicated. “Can he be trusted?”
“He’s a man of his word, and his pack will fall in line.” Mateer shook his head. “The Tzibir are another matter. “
“I intend to ask them to remain neutral but I’m not leaving them trapped in the cell. I have to live with myself when this is all over.”” She was already moving on to the other pack’s cell, where the alpha and his enforcers waited, the rest behind them. Taking a deep breath, she deactivated the force door, staring at the huge male towering over her. “Mateer says—”
AydarrGoogle Page 16