Beloved Stranger: Gaian Series, Book 5

by Janet Miller

  Roan stopped to listen. With the sound of the other boat fading into the background, the natural sound of the tunnels came to him. The slow drip of water from the roof, the lapping of the water against the side of the tunnel.

  And a sound that was not natural, the soft sobbing of someone crying.

  Sonja crying? Relief warred with concern. Why would his fierce little hawk be crying? The sound led him down the cavern wall until he realized she was on the other side of the tunnel.

  “Sonja?” he whispered across the water.

  The sobs quieted. “Roan?” The tentativeness in her voice nearly broke his heart.

  “I’m here. Hold on, I’ll come to you.”

  “Where’s the boat?”

  “Leading whoever was chasing us away from here.” He spoke calmly as he began swimming across the tunnel with long, sure strokes. He needed to get to her and hold her in his arms, reassure himself she was all right. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. I don’t think so. But I’m w-w-wet and it’s so c-cold.”

  “I know, sweetheart. Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

  “Don’t you always?” She laughed and the sound was a balm to his nerves. If Sonja could laugh, then whatever was wrong couldn’t be that bad.

  He reached the other side and found her, a bundle of wet clothes pressed against the wall. She’d managed to find a ledge and crawl out of the water onto it. Excellent, since it would help keep her body from losing more heat to the water.

  There wasn’t enough room on the ledge for him as well. He couldn’t hold her so he contented himself with finding her hand. “What was so wrong that you were crying?”

  “I—I thought you’d left me.”

  Like that would have happened. “No, it just took a few moments for me to find a way to lead them off. I’m sorry you were frightened.”

  She shivered under his hand. They had to get out of here. He did have a plan, but it required getting Sonja back into the water. “We have to move.”

  “Move where?”

  “Just down the tunnel a little way.” He tugged on her hand. “Come on, sweetheart. Trust me.”

  “I still can’t swim, Roan.”

  “It’ll be all right,” he assured as he assisted her back into the water. “I’ll help you.”

  She almost felt warm in his arms as he pulled her along behind him. He remembered this section of the tunnels as having several access points, places where there were passageways with ladders that led to the higher unflooded levels of the mine.

  It was down one of these passageways that he’d come nearly nine years ago, while exploring the underground world he knew was going to be his home for so long. He’d found the underground waterways and been enchanted by them. After that he’d spent most of his free time investigating the tunnels and creating his maps, physical and mental.

  The fact he’d done so much exploring of this underground world was going to pay off. He’d find one of those passages to the upper level and help Sonja up the ladder to safety.

  It seemed to take a long time, though. Mostly she moved on her own, and he was glad for that. The more she moved, the warmer she would stay. But the water was too cold to stay in it long. Fortunately, he felt a draft coming from ahead of him and soon the draft was right next to him, a break in the rock that led into a small hollow in the wall.

  The wall became too smooth to cling to. Roan tugged Sonja into his arms and swam with her into the hollow and up to where there was a set of metal rungs, rusty from the constant damp leading into the water. He pushed Sonja onto the ladder.

  “Can you climb it by yourself?”

  She clung to it, gasping for breath, but when she spoke he heard certainty in her voice. “I’ll make it.”

  Sonja moved slowly upwards, but she did it on her own, and Roan let her. He knew she would be feeling helpless after being in the water. He wanted to protect her and wanted her to know she could rely on him, but he also knew she needed to help herself. He climbed after her, ready to steady her if she slipped.

  Finally she stopped moving. “There isn’t any more ladder.”

  “Then we’re at the entrance to one of the upper mining tunnels.” He reached over to the left and his hand met only rock. On the right side, though, was the smooth metal of a door. “On the right. There should be a handle to push down on.”

  He heard her fumbling and then there was a harsh cry of corroded metal against metal. A rush of air told him the door was open even though the other tunnel was unlit. That was a good sign. “Through there.”

  She stepped off the ladder and into the other tunnel, and Roan followed her. He listened carefully. There were no sounds other than the usual sigh of air moving through the tunnel.

  Roan breathed his own sigh of relief. No sound and no light. Obviously this wasn’t a tunnel in use at the moment. They were safe. He pulled off his backpack and fumbled around inside it for the waterproof lamp. The little light wouldn’t make them drier, but it would lift their spirits.

  He got it lit, and the dim light seemed overbright to their dark-sensitized eyes. Sonja blinked at him, her pale hair a sodden mess over her shoulders, her pale eyes bright with fear. The wet clothes clung to her in a way he might have found sexy if she hadn’t looked so miserable in them. She looked like she was going to cry again.

  “I’m sorry I fell out of the boat.”

  In spite of her obvious misery, he had to laugh. “It was hardly your fault. I was taking those turns way too fast.”

  “But now you’ve lost your boat.”

  “Better it than you, sweetheart.” He pulled her into his arms, grateful to have her there. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

  “What are we going to do now? We have to get to the spaceport.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I told you I have a plan.”

  She relaxed in his arms. “I guess I better trust you, then. What about the others? Can you let them know what happened to us?”

  “Unfortunately the minicoms we were using were short-range only. Allan will get them into the spaceport, and you told him what ship to look for. Are you sure the captain will be there?”

  “He better be,” Sonja said, and for a moment Roan saw a fierce look on her face that reminded him of what she was. Sonja was a female warrior, and whatever her history with the captain of the Bronda was, Roan was certain it wouldn’t be healthy for that captain to betray her.

  But it wasn’t very healthy being in damp clothes, either. It was warmer in this tunnel, but they could still develop hypothermia if they didn’t get dry soon. Roan picked up the small lamp and directed it along the wall. “We need to see if we can’t find a storage bin. If this is a working part of the mine there should be one about somewhere.”

  It wasn’t though, something that was made apparent when they found a wall that stretched across the tunnel, preventing them from moving farther. Roan stared at the barrier with frustration. “Well at least I know exactly where we are now.”

  Looking damp, cold and miserable, Sonja stared at him. “Is this bad?”

  “Depends. My plan had been to go through the mine to get back to Beta and use my third boat to get to the spaceport. Trouble is, this part of the mine doesn’t connect to the rest anymore. We’ll have to backtrack and see if we can’t find passage to another part of the mine.”

  She shivered. “How long will that take?”

  “Longer than I’d like.” He pulled her into his arms again. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wish I could get us out of this. We need to get out of these wet clothes as soon as possible.”

  “Perhaps I can help.” A familiar and most unwelcome voice came from behind them, and Roan and Sonja turned to see Wilcan and two men wearing prisoners’ clothing step into the light of their small lamp.

  Roan groaned inwardly. He’d wondered why someone would have been so intent on following them today. Obviously Wilcan had become fixated on Sonja and simply wouldn’t let her marriage stop him
from getting her. One way or another, he intended to have her.

  The man grinned at them nastily. “I’ll be happy to help the lady out of her clothes.”

  Allan piloted his boat to the dock under the spaceport and got everyone out and into the elevator leading to the surface. Once more everyone tensed as the cranky device shuddered and moaned, and all made a sigh of relief as they arrived inside the top of the maintenance shaft. He took a few moments at the top to use a p-tab they’d left on an earlier visit to consult the spaceport’s computer and determine which platform held the Bronda.

  He led his group through the early evening to the distant ship and tapped the commlink on the ship’s portal. A thick-jowled man scowled through the link.

  “Who are you?”

  “Sonja sent us,” he said.

  The man blinked at him. “Did she? Did she tell you the password?”

  “Password?” Allan couldn’t think what to say. “No, she didn’t mention a password.”

  The man chuckled. “Didn’t she? That’s because there wasn’t one. A minute and I’ll let you in.”

  After a short time the door slid open and Allan led the others into the welcome warmth of the ship. A heavyset man stood just in the portal, a smaller man with Asian features standing nearby. Both held stunners but weren’t actually pointing them at anyone.

  “Name is Denn Fuller,” the big man said. “This is my crewman, Steven Kwam.”

  “Allan Weent,” Allan began, and introduced them all. Fuller’s face lit up when he heard Suna and Sulla’s last name was Deems.

  “She found them, did she? Found her sisters, and after all this time. Sonja always was a resourceful woman.” Fuller led them down the corridor to a larger room. “So where is she now?”

  “We ran into some trouble in the tunnels, and she and Roan led them off. I expect the pair of them will be along any moment.”

  “I hope so for all our sakes,” Fuller said dryly as he pulled open the doors to reveal a spacious and well-appointed ship’s lounge. Allan stopped in his tracks as several men in blue uniforms surrounded them, hoisting their weapons meaningfully.

  Allan grabbed Suna and put her behind him, noticing that Tron did the same for his wife after handing her their daughter.

  Allan turned to Fuller. “What’s going on?”

  A tall, older man came forward, wearing a tailored version of the blue uniform all company officials wore. “As Captain Fuller was about to say, it would be good if Roan Duman would join us.”

  “How did you know to come here?” Allan said.

  The company man smiled. “In a way, he invited me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Allan said. “Roan wouldn’t have told you anything about this ship.”

  The other man shook his head. “I assure you, he did. But explanations must wait until he arrives. Since we must wait, I suggest we all sit down and get comfortable.”

  He indicated the several couches in the room and smiled at Allan and the others. They looked at each other, reluctant to obey.

  He nodded at a couple of the men with guns who pushed two of the couches together. Another pair of guards moved behind them to close the door.

  “Sit down. I insist,” the well-dressed man said.

  Allan, Tron, Sulla and Suna looked at each other, looked at the guards’ weapons and finally sat.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Did that man ever intend to quit following them? Wet and cold was bad enough, but now Sonja was starting to get pissed off as well. The best thing that could happen to her was a reason to be angry.

  And here that reason was, with a couple of new goons. Carefully Sonja checked her pockets and found her stunner and knife. After the dunking they’d taken she wouldn’t trust the stunner, but knives weren’t nearly as subject to problems. She had this one, and the one hidden in her boot.

  Trouble was, she was pretty sure Wilcan wasn’t going to assume she was helpless given how she’d bested his men earlier.

  The man stared at her, and she realized he wasn’t holding a stunner but a particle disrupter, or p-dee, instead. That wasn’t the normal kind of weapon a Gaian would carry with their principle of nonfatal solutions. For a moment she wondered where he’d gotten such a contraband weapon.

  She missed hers, and her fingers itched to hold it.

  “It wasn’t that hard to figure out what happened to you,” Wilcan said, obviously pleased with himself. “Your boat hit one of the walls, and when we caught up to it I realized that you must have bailed out farther back. It was just a matter of backtracking and finding a wet ladder on one of the passages out of there.”

  Roan had his hands raised. “So you’ve caught us. What do you want now?”

  “First of all I want you disarmed.” He glanced at Sonja but waved the p-dee at Roan. “Both of you, or I just use this on him and get it over with.”

  “You’d never get away with killing me,” Roan said.

  “What makes you think that?” He held up his scanner. “There is no sign of your tracking tab, and this part of the mine is sealed off. It could be years before anyone even thinks of coming in here. No one would ever find your body or know what happened to you.”

  “I would know,” Sonja said. “So would your men.” The henchmen were looking at each other, distinctly worried about what their boss was suggesting. Murder wasn’t a crime most Gaians could commit with impunity.

  “You aren’t going to be in any position to talk once I’m done with you,” Wilcan said, and his men looked even less happy.

  The big man stepped closer. “Now let’s have you both empty your pockets.”

  Well, if he insisted. She didn’t mind allowing him to think she was disarmed. She pulled her probably useless stunner from one pocket and dropped it to the ground, followed by her knife. Next to her Roan dropped a stunner and a knife as well, but she was sure he was probably also carrying extra weapons elsewhere.

  She still had her dart, and she had great hopes for what she could do with that, since even if they searched her they wouldn’t necessarily know what to make of it.

  Of course that meant she’d need to be close to the men to use it. From the look on Wilcan’s face, that wasn’t going to be hard to manage. He looked too eager to get to her. She moved closer to him as she emptied her pockets onto the tunnel floor.

  Warily, he kept the weapon pointed at her even as she moved farther and farther from Roan. Then she reached down to pull at her boot.

  “What are you doing?” Wilcan said.

  “You said you wanted me to undress.” One boot hit the ground. “I’m cold and wet and my boots are filled with water.” She turned the boot over, and sure enough a trickle of water dripped out.

  “You should be taking better care of your woman,” Wilcan said.

  Roan didn’t respond, but Sonja saw him tense and knew he intended to jump Wilcan as soon as she had him distracted. She’d make sure he was real distracted. She took her other boot off and again turned it upside down. She shook it to dislodge the knife hidden inside.

  The knife fell into her hand and in one smooth move she threw it at Wilcan. It flew straight to its target, the hand holding the p-dee. With a curse, the big man stared at his skewered hand, the p-dee falling from nerveless fingers.

  Roan attacked with fists flying while Sonja dipped and snatched her other knife off the ground, turning her attention to the henchmen. They had stared at the way she’d disarmed her boss, but now they came to life. Both men sprang at her at once.

  Two against one? Well that hardly seemed fair. She’d have to even the odds quickly. Quickly meant kicking the closest man hard in the crotch as soon as he was within reach. His scream echoed loud in the tunnel, and he dropped to his knees.

  His partner stared aghast. Sonja shook her head. “It couldn’t have been that bad. I was barefoot, after all.” She kicked the fallen man in the head, and he collapsed unconscious at her feet.

  Sonja smiled at the remaining man. “Your turn.”<
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  To his credit, he didn’t do anything stupid like jump her. This man took a step back and whipped his knife in front of him with the attitude of a pro. Sonja grunted. It figured she’d get at least one opponent who was trained in knife fighting. She backed away and let him make several swings at her. One even connected, leaving a slash across the fabric of her shirt.

  Sonja grimaced. This was her favorite of the shirts Roan had given her. Backing away, she noticed her opponent glancing at the ground behind her and realized she’d led him to where her stunner lay. He lunged past her and snatched it up, then unthumbed the safety and put his finger on the trigger.

  “I wouldn’t do that—” she started to say, but then there was a sharp electric crack, and the man shrieked. Wincing, Sonja watched him fall, the smoking stunner dropping from his hands.

  Electric guns such as stunners rarely behaved properly after a good soaking. Water and batteries simply did not mix and if it worked at all, a damp stunner was as likely to electrocute the holder as anyone else.

  As it had here. Sonja checked and he was still breathing, but his hand was a singed mess. Well, at least her opponents were out of the way. She turned to watch Roan fight Wilcan.

  Both men circled, breathing hard and watching each other for opportunities. They’d each found one already—Roan had a bloody slash on his chest while Wilcan’s arm was bleeding in more than one spot. He had two knives, one being the small dagger she’d thrown through his hand. He’d apparently pulled it out to use against Roan.

  Sonja had to admit to a grudging respect for that. It was something she’d have done. However, she didn’t want Wilcan hurting Roan. She considered getting involved, but just as she wouldn’t want Roan interfering when she was battling someone, Roan would probably not appreciate his wife coming to his rescue.

  Sonja held her knife ready to throw. She’d let Roan deal with Wilcan…unless it looked like the other man was going to win.

  Wilcan slashed forward with both knives, and while Roan was able to dodge one, the other man put another gash across Roan’s chest. The blood spread quickly across the wet fabric of his shirt. Roan struck back, and a slash appeared on Wilcan’s arm, this time close to where he was holding his second knife. He tried but couldn’t keep hold of it, and it fell to the ground. Now he faced Roan with only the small knife Sonja had thrown.