“Fuck.” Lainie’s face showed only determination. “I’m going to pick the lock and get you out of here.”
“No! The locks are alarmed, keyed to comp sensors.” And the cameras. Fuck! “Lainie, what did you do to disable the security cams when you came in?”
Lainie let out a long-suffering sigh. “What do you think? I hacked the comp at the entrance to put them on continuous loop for a few minutes. Think I’m stupid? So I can just hack in again and disable the lock sensors.”
“Yeah? And how would we explain my sudden reappearance in the barracks? No. We need help.”
“Help, from where?”
“You’ll have to contact Brilly. In the mess hall, you remember?”
“The one missing a tooth.”
“She’ll find a way to get me out of here.” Rayna took a breath. “In the meantime, I think I’ve figured out why the Thrane is here. And if I’m right, we only have a matter of hours to keep this place from being blown into black space.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sam stepped off the D-mat pad into the familiar blue-lit embrace of home. He took a deep breath and inhaled the welcoming smell of ozone, warm electronics, clean surfaces, people. His people. Some part of the tension inside him uncoiled; with the Shadowhawk around him the impossible had just become possible.
Mo was waiting for him and snatched him into a bear-hug as soon as he got within reach. “You mulaak fool!” His voice was just loud enough for Sam to hear it. “I didn’t think I’d get you back this time.”
Sam pulled back and grinned at him. “Neither did I. Thanks for sending the cavalry.”
Mo turned to shake Gabriel’s hand. “Good to see you again, my friend.”
“Worth it just to hear you set your captain straight.” Gabriel looked at Sam. “And what the hell is ‘cavalry’?”
Sam waved a hand in dismissal. “Old Earth reference. Forget it.”
“Yeah, he’s full of ’em.” Mo led the way into the corridor. “He watches too many holovids. I don’t understand half of what he says.”
Sam acknowledged the smiles and nods of his crew members as he made his way to the bridge with the others. It was clear they were happy to have him back. He was more than happy to be here.
“Ship’s status, XO?”
“We took on as many supplies as we could while we were in port; we were running low after so long at LinHo, where there was nothing to buy. This took twice the usual number of bribes, of course, since we needed everything fast. And I’m not sure our usual contacts in port are going to hold after this visit. Everyone had heard Vort had you ready for delivery to ConSys.”
Sam grunted. “Sorry to disappoint. Continue.”
“All ship’s systems are operational, but we are only at nominal efficiency, especially in life support and weapons. We really need more time for repairs, but that will have to wait. Crew is present and accounted for onboard. We have clearance to leave orbit when you’re ready, Cap.”
The back of his neck prickled at the report of nominal efficiencies in crucial areas, but there was little to be done about that now. Time was against them.
Still, Sam couldn’t help grinning as they swept onto the bridge. “Crew!”
“Cap!” All turned in their places to grin back at him—Sipritz at Navigation, Dartha at the helm, Ot at Weapons, Patel on Communications, Ordman monitoring status boards.
His chest tightened, and for the briefest moment, he couldn’t find any words. He cleared his throat.
“Well, I see we’re all in our places, with bright, shiny faces. Let’s not waste any more time. Helm, prepare to leave orbit.”
“Aye, Cap!”
“Navigation, lay in a course for the C5 jump, maximum ion drive.”
Sipritz smiled—or at least he thought she did. “Already calculated, Cap. Laying it in now.”
“Estimated time of travel?”
“Eleven hours, thirty-two minutes, at three-quarter ion speed.”
Sam looked at Mo. “Three-quarter is the best we can do?”
“If we hope to sustain it.” The Pataran’s usual grim expression grew even darker. “Kwan has things cobbled together like a hoocher’s still. Don’t push it.”
Gabriel, now sprawled in one of the “observation” seats, raised an eyebrow.
“Understood. Three-quarter it is. Mark course and speed once we’re out of orbit, Sip.”
“Aye, Cap.”
“Ready to leave orbit, Cap. Spacedock Central is standing by.” Dartha looked at him expectantly.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, helm.”
“Leaving orbit, Cap.”
He paced the Cap’s walk above the horseshoe-shaped conn and watched as they scribed a graceful arc out of Madras orbit. The two companion planets in Madras’s solar system were well off his flight path. Once away from the gravity well of the planet he’d just left, his ship found her highest possible speed, and they raced for the jump node at C5, which would chute them to the C4 node and LinHo.
Mo put a stop to Sam’s pacing near Gabriel’s chair. “We need to talk.”
Sam took note of the strain in his First Officer’s long face. “Tell me.”
Mo shook his head. “Your command room.”
Sam recognized that tone of voice and felt his heart drop into his stomach. He glanced at Gabriel to indicate he should join them, and inclined his head in the direction of the tiny cabin just off the bridge.
He put a hand on his helm officer’s shoulder as he passed. “Dartha, you have the conn.”
In the cabin, Sam slid behind his desk. This would be an official report, he knew. He would have to be the captain. Might as well take the position.
Mo stood before him. “I reported that all crew members were onboard and accounted for. That was not entirely accurate.” He waited a beat while Gabriel sank into the seat behind him. “We’re missing Lainie Butaar.”
“The kid we picked up on Belarius?” Sam absorbed a sudden, gripping pain in his chest. “Since when?”
“Since LinHo. I had a party go out and look for her while we installed the new jump matrix, but word on the rock was that work details from Kinz were picking up anything that moved on the streets.”
He’d arrived once just in time to save her from a life of degradation and misery on Belarius. Now his XO was telling him she’d been dragged back into it on LinHo? The pain morphed into anger.
“How the hell did she get off the ship? A kid like that—”
Mo held up a hand. “You’d ordered limited shore leave—senior crew only. And I held to that. In fact, the only people down on that planet were yourself, Chen, Doc Berta, Kwan and Javin Darto—and Darto was only there because Kwan needed him. Lainie took herself off this ship. She ran.”
“Why would she run? To a garbage pit like LinHo?” Sam raked a hand through his hair in frustration.
Gabriel stirred. “How long had she been aboard?”
Sam thought back. She’d only been a slip of a thing when they’d found her on that auction block—maybe thirteen or fourteen? But tough as the hull of his ship; it had taken a circuit at least before she let her guard down.
“I don’t know. Maybe three circuits.” He shook his head.
“Was she usually a rebel? Breaking rules, coming in late off shore leave, that sort of thing?”
“Never.” Mo spoke up in her defense. It was his job to know, after all. “Her only problem was a smart mouth.”
Gabriel’s lips quirked. “It’s a pirate ship.” He looked at Sam. “Doesn’t sound like she’s the kind of kid who would go AWOL without a reason.”
Sam blew out a breath in exasperation. “What possible reason could she—oh, shit. She was Rayna’s cabinmate for the first few days she was here.”
From long habit, Mo caught his line of reasoning. “You think Lainie followed Rayna off the ship?”
“I think she suspected something was up that night and followed us all the way to the bar where I made the hand-off to
Daniel.” He clenched his fists to keep from hitting something. “Gods, what she must think of me.”
“She probably tried to follow Daniel and Rayna to Kinz and got picked up somewhere on the way.” Gabriel looked up at him. “You can see this one of two ways. Either you’ve got a second person to find and rescue from that hellhole, or by a freaking miracle Ray has someone to watch her back in what has become a giant clusterfuck.” He shrugged. “Me, I’m an optimist. From what you tell me of these two women, I choose to believe they found each other. Now all we have to do is get our asses to LinHo and get them out of there.”
“I need more freedom of movement. Returning me to the barracks is unacceptable.”
From behind his desk the Minertsan regarded Rexus Kor with opaque black eyes, his normally silver-gray aura tinged dark green with fear. “But how am I to explain giving a slave free access to the facility? Surely you can see that would be suspicious.”
Rex had nothing but disgust for the little slime lizard, but he restrained his worst emotions. After all, the factory manager was a patriot, working against the private Minertsan owners who were selling the Kinz factory output to the Grays rebeling against their own government. But he was a coward, too, afraid to do all that was necessary. Not for the first time, Rex thought to touch the Gray’s mind and force him to his will. Only impatience stayed him. Overcoming the manager’s natural resistance would take time he did not have.
“You would not have to ‘free’ me,” Rex explained. “Simply leave me in the infirmary. It should be easy to make some excuse in the official record. Provide me with a security access card; I’ll do the rest.”
“What about the infirmary staff?”
Rex waved a hand. “I can control them.”
The Gray opened a drawer and reached for the access card, his aura dark and swirling with doubt. “You will be cautious?”
“I know my business.”
Deep red and black now marked the creature’s aura. “Your business has already been a bloody one.”
Anger flared in Rex’s chest, and he slammed both fists on the manager’s desk. “Not nearly bloody enough. My mate is dead! And her killer has yet to be found. Where is that shalssiti bitch? Tell me that!”
The manager shrank back into his chair, his aura flashing deep yellow and green in terror. “We’ve searched the whole compound! She must have found a way out. Surely you’ve had your revenge on the guard you said was helping her?”
“That guard had nothing to do with Zetana’s murder. I killed him because he came to you about me.” Rex backed away from the desk and started to pace. “He must have been allied with Carver, though. And it makes me wonder—how many other agents of the enemy hide among your staff? How many will I have to eliminate before I can complete my task?”
“If you do your work quickly and quietly, perhaps no one.”
Rex turned to look at the little Gray. “But where would be the fun in that?” He held out his hand for the access card. The manager handed it over, and Rex secreted it inside his jumpsuit. Then he left the manager’s office without another word, picking up his escort outside the office door to return to the infirmary. He walked meekly behind the guard through the passageways and into the medical wing to his cot, his mind busy.
After lights out tonight he would begin his task of setting the charges throughout the facility, planting his packages in all the places guaranteed to cause the greatest devastation, the maximum amount of suffering. Rex calculated the work would take no more than two nights, by which time, by previous arrangement, the Tifan would be waiting for him in LinHo orbit.
Only now he had nowhere for the Tifan to take him. He had no home to return to, no future ahead. The life he had envisioned with Zetana was nothing but ashes and dust, its memory a bitter taste in his mouth. All because of that bitch. That shalssiti pultafa vlitz!
She was still here, he could feel it. He was connected to her—through pain, through blood. He didn’t believe she had escaped this maximum security facility. Yes, inside Kinz it was easy to get away with almost anything—including murder. But to get in or out of Kinz? That was nearly impossible. And despite what he’d said to the manager, he didn’t think there were that many others working with the agent on the inside. Otherwise why bring her in?
No. She was here, and he would find her. A simple death in the fire and crushing weight of shattered thermocrete and durasteel that he had planned for the Kinz factory was not good enough for that bitch. She must have something more elaborate and protracted, something more intimate, just between the two of them. Rex smiled in the isolation of his cot in the infirmary, and the comp monitors set into the mattress noted his anticipation with indications of elevated heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure.
He would find that bitch Rayna Carver and take her with him when he left this place. That would be his future—to torture his enemy until she died, in sweet revenge of his beloved mate. Then perhaps he could finally have peace.
Doc Berta had insisted he waste several hours under the healing light. And there were the interminable files full of facts that he had to get through to reacquaint himself with the Shadowhawk’s current status. By the time Sam was in his command room with a drink in his hand, he was heavy with fatigue. Maybe a few minutes in his bunk . . .
Gabriel examined the amber liquid in his glass. “Have you given any thought to what might happen after LinHo?”
“We connect with Daniel, he makes contact with his people on the inside of Kinz. We pray that Ray has already found Lainie so we don’t have to wait long for them to come out.” Sam re-crossed his feet on top of his desk in the command room. He poured himself another two fingers of the good stuff, which he drank only three or four times a circuit, when Gabriel was aboard. “Then we hightail it out of orbit as fast as this beautiful bucket of bolts will take us.”
The corners of Gabriel’s mouth ticked upward. “Not a bad plan, but that’s not what I meant. I meant, when this is all over and you have Rayna safe and sound aboard your ship—what are you going to do then?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.” Something with claws scraped through Sam’s chest. At best he’d be lucky to be with Rayna as often as he savored the taste of real alcohol. He tossed back the liquor and anything else he might have said.
“Oh, m’hijo, you are in deep shit.” Gabriel leaned forward to look him in the eye. “You’re a pirate, for God’s sake. And this woman—she works for Rescue. As an agent. You don’t get any more committed to a cause than that. Has she ever said why?”
“Her parents were slaves.”
“And Rescue got them out—like most of the families on Terrene, including mine. There’s more to it than that.”
Sam swung his feet to the floor with a growl. “What are you, her psych counselor, now? I’m going to the bridge; it’s almost time for the jump.”
Gabriel rose to let him pass. “Figure out why she needs to do this, Sam. Then you might have a chance of changing her mind.”
Sam turned to look at the man who had been his friend since the day he’d rolled off the ’hawk for his first shore leave. “Maybe she’s already changed mine. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the teeth.”
He stepped out to the bridge, where the chorus of voices greeted him. “Cap.”
“Crew.” Sam tamped down the worry and confusion that still burned in his gut over his future with Rayna and focused on the here and now. “Status, Mo?”
His XO turned from the sensors. “Approaching Jump Node C5 at just under three-quarter ion power. We’ll encounter the outer limits of the Ming Ra asteroid field in approximately ten minutes, thirty seconds at this speed.”
“Very good. Give me a schematic of C5, showing Ming Ra, would you, Sip?”
“Aye, Cap.”
“And prepare to slow to half speed on my mark, Dartha.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Cap.”
The detailed three-dimensional rendering of the area around the C5 jump node filled the main v
iewscreen, showing the small spatial distortion that was the node itself in front of a spray of asteroids the size of half a solar system. The space approaching the node was relatively clear of rocks, the gravitational cone of the node itself having captured whatever may have orbited within range and sent it through the wormhole to the other side. But nothing was ever guaranteed around C5; it was a minefield, one that changed every hour.
“Slow to half ID, helm; ready on weapons, Ot. I’m sure we’ll have one or two rogues to pick up before we go in.” Just because the random asteroids weren’t yet visible on the screen didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Both helm and weapons officers acknowledged the orders; he gave a few more. “Shields up. Give us the best approach, Sip.”
“Aye, Cap. Approaching at 100,000 kilometers now.”
“You seeing those rogues yet, Mo?”
“I have one within sight now, Cap, 130 mark 7, maximum range.”
A light appeared on the viewscreen, indicating the presence of the rogue along their course. Then another. And one more. Mo called out the coordinates as he saw them.
“Navigation, maintain a position on those things. Helm, keep us clear of them. As soon as we get within weapons range, we may have to take one or two of them out just to make sure.”
Sam paced the upper walkway, apprehension twisting the back of his neck. He tried to shrug it off.
“What’s our weapons status, Mo? Still no forward transducers?”
Mo straightened from his post and gave him a look that would have withered a lesser man. “When last I checked, credits did not fall from the stars. The only reason we aren’t still stuck in LinHo orbit is that your Chief Engineer is an extremely talented gambler. We spent all of his winnings at Slash on a new jump matrix. He didn’t win enough for new transducers.”
“Okay, I get it.” Shame burned Sam’s cheeks. How long had it been since they’d taken a profitable haul? “I haven’t been doing my job. You’d be right to toss me over.”
Fools Rush In (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 3) Page 26