Jim went over what he was going to tell Captain Chen, but he couldn’t think of anything that kept him from feeling ashamed.
*
After the girl had been given her breakfast—which she refused to eat—Aaron Thallian returned to stand outside the forcefield. This time he brought an armed guard, in case he needed to interrogate the girl. “You were correct,” he told her. “Jonan wants you alive. He is coming home with all speed.”
The girl nodded calmly. “Did he tell you also that he’s bringing a message from the Emperor?”
Aaron stared at her. “How could you know that?”
“Who do you think let me out of the Templar Master’s tomb?”
“Why didn’t Jonan do it?”
“He has a mission to fulfill. Has he given you any indication what that might be?”
Aaron did not like the way the girl played with him. Granted, his interaction with females had been limited, since family doctrine forbade him to mate. Be that as it may, she appeared too much in control for someone ostensibly his prisoner.
He touched the lock outside her cell, then passed through the forcefield. She merely sat on her bunk and watched him.
“Who are you really?” he insisted.
“Your brother told you who I am.”
“The Empire executed Raena Zacari for treason.”
“You haven’t found any recording of my execution, have you?”
Rather than answer, he said, “The wanted poster shows that Zacari had a scar across her face.”
“I had it removed,” Raena said.
“Jonan said your back would be scarred.”
Zacari stood languidly. She grabbed hold of the zipper of her jumpsuit and opened it to the waist. She let the sleeves drop from her shoulders, then turned to display the ridges of scar tissue that striped diagonally across her back. “Did he tell you how he marked me like this?”
Aaron’s mouth went dry. He wanted to touch her scars so badly that he quivered.
She did not turn to gauge his reaction. Instead, she stood at attention, proud of what she’d survived. She might have been a Thallian herself, Aaron thought, before he shook the thought away.
“He striped me with accelerant and set me on fire,” she said, “in his stateroom aboard the Arbiter. He was furious that I’d dared to distract him from torturing a Coalition smuggler. He couldn’t forgive me for being jealous.”
She turned to face Aaron again, naked to the hips except for a tight black band across her small breasts. She pointed to the scar just beneath her ribs. “While protecting your brother, I was shot in the conference room aboard the Arbiter. Your brother licked my blood from his gloved fingers.”
When she didn’t say anything more, Aaron dragged his gaze back up to her face.
“Shall I tell you the stories of the rest of my scars?” she asked. He would have said she was flirting with him. “Or have you seen enough?”
“Enough.” Aaron tore himself away, retreating out of the cell.
Raena Zacari shrugged back into her clothing and sat down again.
*
“Vivisection?” Kavanaugh echoed, disgust thick in his voice. “Why would they need to do that to make the plague?”
“They’re not making the plague yet,” Mykah corrected. “Thallian hasn’t brought them the order. They’re just learning to torture the ‘bugs.’”
Jim nodded. “They could harvest whatever DNA they need to sequence without hurting the Templars. This is cruelty for evil’s sake.”
“I didn’t know any Templars were ever captured alive,” Mykah said.
“Does it surprise you they kept it quiet?” Kavanaugh asked bitterly.
Gisela cut across Mykah’s response. “How many Templars are there?”
“Four,” Jim answered, “including the one I saw tortured.”
“Can we fit them onto the Veracity?”
The others looked at her.
“Look, we are not leaving them here.” Gisela’s voice quivered with anger, daring them to argue. “If we can take them forward in time, then the Templar Master will have other Templars to clone from, right? So that would add to the genetic diversity.”
“If we succeed in ending the plague, it won’t matter,” Mykah pointed out. “But you’re right: it’s still the right thing to do.”
“I’ll see what I can do about clearing out the hold,” Kavanaugh volunteered. “I don’t have any idea how to make it comfortable for them.”
“What do they eat?” Mykah asked, but no one had an answer. “All right, it doesn’t matter. Whatever we can offer them, it will be better than what they have now.”
“You’re fixating on the wrong details,” Gisela scolded. “The question is: how can we get them out of the city?”
Kavanaugh shook his head. “You’re not thinking like an Imperial officer,” he told Mykah. “Tell the Thallians you already know the Templars are here. Say that the Emperor asked you to interrogate them. Don’t allow them to say no.”
*
Some fair amount of time passed. Unlike her cell on Kai, where she could see the sky, this cell was either deep inside a building or else underground. As in her tomb, Raena had no way to measure time here.
She had already had enough of being imprisoned. She jumped up enough to hook her fingers over her shoulders into the ventilation grate. Then she slowly pulled her feet up over her head, toes pointed, legs extended, straining her muscles and perfecting her form. She repeated the exercise until her fingers cramped, until her arms trembled with fatigue.
Some of the younger clones came to watch her. None of them spoke to her. She hoped that fear of Jonan would provide her a measure of protection, but it no longer really mattered. She was committed to buying Jim and the others time to figure out how to prevent the Templar from wiping out humanity. She would do whatever she had to, to keep the Thallians distracted.
She wondered if she would sense it when Jonan returned home. Would the tension in the air change? Would the clones all bustle around, attempting to look busy? She knew that he had been the alpha clone after the demolition of his homeworld. She was curious how they’d felt about him while the planet still lived.
*
“Uncle Aaron,” Avan said, “there’s a private message from Captain Chen.”
Aaron stepped over to his nephew’s station to look down at the boy’s screen. The message bore an Imperial code number, one Aaron didn’t recognize. “Put it through to my office.”
He didn’t hurry to pick it up. The Veracity’s continued presence on Drusingyi was a mystery. Why had Jonan sent them here, rather than having them report directly to the Arbiter? Captain Chen’s aide, the pretty blue-eyed girl, seemed little more than a child. He wasn’t sure why that disturbed him. And their captive, Raena Zacari, was certainly more than she claimed. As a rule, Aaron didn’t care for mystery.
He pressed a key on his desk and said, “Captain Chen.”
“Lord Thallian, I’ve received a message coded Priority One directing me to interrogate the Templars in your custody.”
Whatever Aaron might have expected to hear, that wasn’t it. “I’m sorry,” he said icily, “I don’t understand.”
Chen’s smile went a touch smug. “Your brother reported to the Emperor that he had delivered several Templars to you. We captured a device that we believe will translate the bugs’ color language into Standard. His Imperial Majesty has given me leave to test the device on your captives.”
Aaron took a moment to phrase his response. “Captain Chen, we do not allow off-worlders into our city.”
Chen’s expression crossed the line into condescension. “Of course, I am willing to wait until the Arbiter arrives,” he said. “Unfortunately, the Emperor is not. I have been authorized to remind you that His Majesty has been content to allow Drusingyi its autonomy as a favor to your brother for all his diligent service.”
He didn’t go on to speak the threat, but Aaron heard it nonetheless.
*
Aaron returned when the monitors showed that Zacari was asleep. He stood in the darkened corridor outside the cell and watched her.
As if she could sense him there, she opened her eyes.
Neither of them spoke.
Eventually, she smiled. With a shudder, Aaron walked away.
CHAPTER 17
As a condition of interrogating the Templars, the Thallians insisted that the Veracity’s crew leave their weapons outside the city. Mykah let himself into Raena’s cabin and opened the panel above her bunk. Inside hung the pair of chipped stone knives. He slipped one into the top of his boot, the way she did.
Kavanaugh and Gisela met him at the hatch. Jim had contrived a case for Vezali’s translator that made it look rare and special. It was cutting-edge tech from twenty years in the future: guaranteed the Thallians had never seen anything like it. Kavanaugh would carry the translator, while Jim stayed with the ship and got its engines primed for takeoff.
Gisela was armed with Vezali’s little zip gun. She had also broken down a Stinger and split the pieces between the three of them. Its power pack was tucked into the box with the translator. Other than that, they didn’t want to push the Thallians’ restrictions. Getting thrown into detention wouldn’t help anyone.
The three of them presented themselves at the city gate. One of Aaron’s lieutenants passed them through the energy scanner and let them inside the city. The Thallian clones were very interested in the translator, but of course none of the Veracity’s crew admitted to speaking anything but Imperial Standard, so they had no way to test it.
A six-man honor guard escorted Mykah and the others into a bunker built down into the surface of the ground. Mykah noted the weird smells Jim had mentioned.
“We believe this is a queen,” one of the Thallian clones said. He halted in front of one of the darkened stalls.
Mykah peered into the shadows inside. “Is it restrained?”
“Yes.”
“Open the door.”
“Captain, these things are deadly.”
“The creature from whom we took the translator was wearing it,” Mykah said, sparing a fond thought for Vezali. “We believe it needs to make bodily contact with the subject to work.”
“It’s your funeral.” The Thallian reached forward and placed his hand on the lock screen.
Mykah pulled the translator over his head and stepped into the shadowy stall. He wasn’t at all sure this would work. The Templars spoke in colors and the translator worked in sound, but somehow the apparatus had been able to translate for Raena and the Templar Master on Drusingyi.
“I’m called Mykah,” he thought to the bulk in front of him. “Can you understand me?”
The creature crawled around to face him. Primary colors, shot through with vivid green, swirled across its face.
“Yes,” it said. “Welcome, Mykah Chen. We have been awaiting you.” He could hear the Templar’s words inside his head, like a thunderstorm. He clenched his eyes shut and wondered if there was a way to turn the translator down.
Aloud, Mykah asked, “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Yes.” The Templar’s voice was genderless and low, a musical hum that made the air quiver.
The Thallians gathered close to the door of the stall, startled to hear the Templar speaking aloud.
“How many of you are there here?”
“Four.”
“Are you a breeding queen?”
“Yes.”
The Thallians suddenly rustled behind him, all of them snapping to attention at once, their hands to their earpieces. Mykah had a sinking feeling.
“Captain Chen,” the lieutenant said, “the Arbiter is entering the system.”
“Excellent,” Mykah said aloud, forcing enthusiasm to cover his dread. “I look forward to reporting to your brother at the first opportunity.”
To the Templar queen, he thought, “We need to get out of here now.”
It rushed toward him, snatching him up in its forelegs. He shouted in surprise. Gisela took the distraction to shoot the two Thallians closest to her. Kavanaugh snatched up one of their guns as everyone dodged in separate directions, looking for cover. Gisela ducked inside the Templar Queen’s cell, reloading her zip gun.
Mykah stared at her. The girl seemed scarily calm, even though he could see two bodies sprawled outside the cell. Somehow, he hadn’t believed she was a killer like Raena.
He bent to saw at the ropes pinioning the Queen with Raena’s stone knife. It was surprisingly sharp.
*
Three clones stood outside Raena’s cell. They had not turned on the hallway lights, or the lights in her cell. They stood in the twilight, watching her pretend to sleep. They were young men, Jonan’s younger brothers. She wondered if they had ever been off the planet before, if they’d seen a girl. Spoken to one. Touched one.
Raena smiled at them, but didn’t get up. “Did you want something?” She pitched the tone of her voice to make them shiver.
“Why are you here?” one of the clones asked.
“I’ve seen the error of my ways. I want to return to serving your brother.”
“But why did you come here?” he repeated. “Why didn’t you go directly back to the Arbiter?”
“Jonan directed Captain Chen to bring me here.”
Another clone hissed at her.
She laughed. “Does it trouble you that I am intimate enough with your brother to use his given name?”
“Just how intimate were you?” the clone wanted to know. His voice was lower pitched than his brother’s.
Raena met his eyes. “Very.”
As if that was the permission they wanted, they let themselves into her cell. They stood over her in a pack, gloating to have her in their power. One of them let her in on their joke: “You’ll be glad to know that the Arbiter has entered the system.”
So they knew they had to make use of her quickly, before Jonan took her away.
Raena shoved herself upward. She remembered what Jim told her about the boys being trained to work as a team. She hadn’t seen that amongst the younger ones on her first trip to Drusingyi, but these were adult, more practiced. Raena kicked the first in the crotch hard enough to lift him from the floor. The other two charged her.
The fight had to be over with fast, she realized. The attackers hadn’t turned the lights up, but unless they’d turned off the cameras, she had to assume someone was monitoring the show. Reinforcements, when they came, would be better armed.
The leader flung himself atop her, trying to pin her to the bunk. He grabbed both of her hands in one of his, wrenched them over his head. She went limp, as if she’d lost the will to fight. All she needed was for his attention to wander. When he reached for the zipper of her jumpsuit, Raena twisted one hand free. He jerked his head away, so she missed her target, but her nails sunk deep into his eye socket instead. Now he knew she was serious.
He scrambled backward, fear overpowering his hormones, Raena launched herself off the bunk. She slammed into him, hands around his wrists so he couldn’t slow his fall as he toppled. His head whacked the floor good enough that he went limp.
The third one grabbed her foot to haul her backward. He’d underestimated how sharp her boot heels were and how motivated Raena was to use them. They only wanted to rape her. They wanted her awake and aware enough to know what was happening to her. She had no such restrictions. She slashed open the lad’s femoral artery. He collapsed, cursing, trying to stanch the blood.
She rolled back to her feet and spun toward the first clone. His face had gone a sour green color, but he’d managed to get himself to his knees.
“All I want is out,” Raena said. “Let me go and you can still save your brother’s life.”
“There are guards in the hall,” he panted as he struggled to his feet.
“Will they give me as much trouble as you three have?” She advanced on him again, slowly, to give him time to think. He hadn’t called for assistance, even t
hough it was close at hand. He hadn’t wanted the others to see how badly she’d beaten them.
He dragged himself to his full height, got his hands up into the semblance of a defensive position.
Raena skipped toward him. When she brought her knee up fast, he dropped his hands. She answered him with a punch in the throat. Now he couldn’t change his mind and call for aid.
She slipped behind him and forced his left arm up between his shoulder blades. If he didn’t twist just the right way, he’d dislocate his own shoulder.
She marched him over to the lock, nodded down to it. She didn’t need to apply much pressure to his wrist to make unlocking the cell seem like a good idea.
As soon as the forcefield started to shimmer, Raena knocked his head into the wall. Holding him up, she searched his pockets. The back of his collar hid a knife sheath. She stole the blade and let him drop over the threshold of the cell.
He was correct. Two guards stood at the end of the hall. They carried handguns, both sheathed. One had a bandolier of sleep grenades.
She weighed the knife in her hand, then flung it. The clone on the left slumped.
She leaned into a run as the second guard drew his gun. If he’d had a Stinger, she might have worried. They powered up fast. The quick start cost power in the bolt, but the gun reacted quickly enough to draw and fire while hunting. This gun was some kind of clunky Imperial firearm, designed for continuous fire. A brute weapon, not anything that required skill.
She made it halfway down the hall before he fired his first shot. It went past her, wide enough that she didn’t even feel the heat.
He kept his finger on the trigger, sweeping toward her. Raena flung herself into a roll.
Something behind her sparked, caught fire. The fire suppression system kicked in, filling the hallway with mist.
The guard let up on the trigger, unsure if he’d hit her. He’d just realized he should have sounded the alarm. As soon as he glanced toward it, Raena flung herself forward. She barreled into him, mashing him against the wall as she pulled the pin of one of the sleep grenades. The gas whooshed up into his face.
No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three Page 29