“Okay, you may not need them, but, respectfully, Cap, you do need me.” She stared up at him, her expression set.
Sam’s eyebrows came together. “Does this have something to do with that brawl on the PT deck? Because that wasn’t your fault.”
Chen tilted her head. “That brawl. Murder, sabotage, general bullshit aboard my ship, Cap. I might be a little pissed. Think I need to work off some aggression. Sir.”
The corners of his mouth curved upward. “Understood. Just you, then.” He looked over the squad in the corridor. “Nice uniforms, crew. Maybe next time. You’re dismissed.”
There was a groan as the squad members realized they were all dressed up with nowhere to go, but they dispersed quietly enough.
In the D-mat room, Lainie Butaar waited for him, her expression as woeful as her dirty, bedraggled clothing. Her heart-shaped face was as pale as bone, and her eyes flitted back and forth between him and Security Chief Chen. She looked for all the worlds like he might strike her. Perai, did she distrust him that much?
She drew to something like attention when he came near. “I—you can throw me in the brig, Cap, but you have to listen first! Please!”
All right, so she realized she was on the hook for jumping ship. That was a promising start. Sam wanted to hug her, but he was the captain, and he figured he’d play this for what it was worth.
“First, tell me Ray’s okay.” He didn’t want to hear anything else until he knew.
Lainie bobbed her head. “She’s fine. At least she was when I left.”
He folded his arms across his chest and tried not to let the relief he felt show on his face. “Okay, then. From the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
Lainie told her tale, and Sam sent up a quick prayer of gratitude to whatever gods existed in the universe for keeping Rayna safe so far. Then he implored them to hold her in their hands a little longer. Just until he could get to her.
The girl finished her story. “Ray wouldn’t let me help. She’s gone to find the Thrane in the infirmary—alone.”
Sam shook his head. “She was right to send you out, Lainie. Who knows how far that madman has gotten in placing his explosives.”
“Hand-held sensor equipment can be modified to detect nanoprocessor links if that’s the kind of device he’s using,” Gabriel said.
“That’s what he used on the ’hawk,” Chen confirmed, “and we tried hand-helds on the ship. They work, but searching with them is slow. We’d never cover a territory as large as Kinz in time.”
“And the only reason to do it would be to save lives. Get the people out and let him blow it to hell, I say.” Sam’s fists tightened at his sides. “This is an arms factory that uses slave labor. I want to see it reduced to a pile of rubble.”
“Cap, please don’t make me stay on the ship.” Lainie leaned forward, her entire body pleading with him. “You want to take Kinz down, and I can help. I can get you in and out twice as fast as anybody else. And I can fight, you know I can.”
Sam put his hand on her shoulder and tried to smile. “Do you know what Rayna would do to me if I let you go back there with us? Perai, I’ll probably never hear the end of it for putting my ass in danger, and I’m a grown man. If I survive. Ray wanted you safe. I want you safe. Stay here. That’s an order.”
“But—”
“And don’t make me enforce it by ordering you to the brig—which is what I ought to do for the offense of jumping ship. You’re lucky I’m only confining you to quarters for the rest of your life.”
The girl stood tall, her lips a thin line, but at last she accepted the reprimand. “Aye, Cap.”
He turned, dismissing her. His mind was on only one thing now.
He nodded at his team. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Near Crystal Lake, Illinois, Earth, Sector Three, 1987
Over the cornfield the sky was a vast, black bowl full of bright stars, the air as clear and cold as only February in Illinois could make it. She snuggled into Tom’s shoulder, seeking warmth, and reassurance. Shirley knew she was acting like a silly teenager, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. It had, after all, been her first time.
Her boyfriend wasn’t any older, but he seemed happy to provide what she needed. The two of them leaned on the hood of his ancient Chevy Nova and stared up with mouths open, breaths mingling.
“I told you this was a good spot,” he said.
She snorted. “It’s the middle of nowhere.”
“Nobody bothered us.”
She laughed, warm with memory. “True. But, damn, boy, we drove miles from home to get here. You’re gonna have to book it to get me back before curfew. Mama’ll kill both of us.”
“It took twenty minutes to get here from the city limits. I timed it.”
She turned to face him, her arms linked around his back. “Really. Well, aren’t you smart!”
He leaned in to kiss her, humor, maybe even love, gleaming in his dark eyes, but his head snapped up before his lips reached hers.
Light—blinding, searing, shattering light—exploded all around them and obliterated every other sense. She screamed and latched onto him, even as she heard him shout—“Shirley!”—over and over again, as if he couldn’t find her, even though he held her in his arms.
The ground shook beneath her feet. Then her whole body rose above the earth, and Tom was ripped out of her clutching hands. The light filled her head so she couldn’t see; a high-pitched sound pierced her ears, making her want to scream. She did scream, in terror and in rage. What the hell was happening? She couldn’t see Tom now, or feel him, and she was being carried up, up . . . and oh, God, help me!
Helpless!
Helpless! The emotion overwhelmed her, sapping her will to fight. Rayna lay on the cold concrete, unable to move, overtaken by the vision of two familiar teenagers in another time and place. In a flash of awareness she saw her real surroundings: a mechanical room, deep in the heart of Kinz. The machinery hummed around her. And across from her, Rexus Kor, his face contorted with hate. His eyes bored into her and pain smashed into her head once more.
Shirley wanted to fight against the shackles that bound her arms and legs in place tight against the cold, metal table. She wanted to scream in outrage and pain, to curse at the nightmare beings that had put her here and surrounded her now, like so many veterinarians putting down a stray dog. She longed to reach out to Tom, who lay still and unseeing on the table next to hers. But she could do nothing, say nothing. She waited like a piece of meat on the table for carving—awake, aware, alive to all the pain and humiliation. And when they began, she could only scream in silence in the echoing darkness of her mind.
Helpless.
No! Rayna shook off the vision once again. “No, you sonofabitch!”
She struggled to sit up, her head heavy, her limbs like durasteel. Sharp metal cut into her wrists and ankles and held her in place, but when she looked down, nothing was there. She fought the phantom pain, her muscles clenching and twisting against restraints that didn’t exist, a cry of rage erupting out of her chest. Then her entire body went rigid in agony as the Thrane exerted his control over her again. Her shields were no protection. She was swallowed by darkness.
She didn’t know how long she had been on the table. The cold, the pain, the intolerable light had gone on forever, were still going on. The creatures, with their big, black, nightmare eyes, their gray skin, their tiny, shrunken bodies and oversized heads, still hovered. Around her, around . . . the other. She could no longer remember his name. Or hers. She knew he was important, but she no longer knew why.
The creatures milled about, more of them now than before. They huddled over something that looked like a . . . a television screen. She could only be grateful that the thing drew their attention away from her. She could stop screaming now. The other could stop filling her ears with his screams, too. She no longer cared what was going to happen next. She only wanted to sleep. Her eyes drifted clos
ed.
And snapped open again as a tall, hulking creature of an entirely different sort grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. Her heart gave a mild thump-thump in response to being roughly handled, but she did not scream; she no longer felt terror or anger or any urge to fight back. She would simply go with this . . . creature . . . wherever he wanted her to go. It was easier that way.
She turned to look. The other, the boy (he wasn’t yet a man, she noticed, not quite) had his own giant guard and was coming with them. Something deep inside her was reassured by that. He had been given a jumpsuit with a number on the front and back—5411. She looked down in some surprise to see she’d been dressed in the same kind of loose, white clothing. Her number was 3390.
The guards pulled them out of the examination room and through a maze of shiny equipment. Her image reflected back at her—a young girl with dark skin and wide eyes, small, lost, surrounded by monsters. It took her a moment to realize that they had shaved her head.
They emerged into a dim corridor crowded with people. Men and women of all colors and descriptions stood waiting in long, densely-packed lines, their faces blank, their eyes staring straight ahead. A tiny spark of fear and revulsion blossomed in her chest. Where am I? What is going on here? But a wave of pain rose up and washed through her head, nearly bringing her to her knees. Her guard jerked her back up and dragged her forward, cursing at her in some language that didn’t make sense.
“Another fucking resistant. That’s the third one this tendays,” the other guard said, his voice a low, grating growl. In some distant part of her mind she recognized that she shouldn’t be able to understand him. The syllables spilling from his mouth were nothing she’d ever heard before.
“Maybe we should just turn around and take her back for another wipe.” Her guard started back.
His partner stopped him. “You know we can’t. They’ll just say it’s too early. Somebody’ll figure it out soon enough and drag her back through the program.”
“Yeah? They don’t have to deal with the consequences every mulaak day.” This time he nearly yanked her off her feet to pull her down the corridor. The whole time the boy, 5411, had said nothing. He’d barely moved, even to follow the action with his eyes.
Wake up! she wanted to yell at him. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with everybody here? Everybody except me!
Rayna came to herself again with a jolt. Again, she was bound hand and foot, thick metal wire wound around her wrists and ankles. She cleared her mind and tested her bonds. Sharp pain lanced through her body from her extremities, and blood slicked the wire where it had cut into her skin.
Rexus Kor laughed from several meters away. “Oh, yes, the bonds are real. I need to leave you for a while, my pet. Can’t have you running off while I’m working, can I?”
Time. Distraction. She knew what kind of work he would be up to while he was away.
“You could be breaking my fingers one by one. Pulling out my teeth.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “You could fill my mind with thoughts of pain and suicide. Instead you give me this worn-out holo-vid of teenagers in the hands of the nasty aliens? Why?”
Something black and repugnant slithered behind Rex’s eyes. “Because this is your darkest nightmare—the night your parents were taken. I can read it in your mind.”
“But it’s not real. You don’t know what happened that night, because I don’t know.” Her parents had never told her anything about it.
He shrugged. “What does it matter? We both know what happens in the Grays’ processing centers. And you have imagined your parents there over and over.”
Damn him, it was true. As a child. As a teenager, their age. Even now, she wanted to be the one that pulled them out of there. She’d always seen herself as their rescuer. And here she was, in need of rescue herself. She hurled a glob of spit across the floor at the Thrane.
He leapt back and laughed. “You see? Those shields Rescue taught you to build are no match for me, and we have not even begun to find those things that will most terrify and degrade you. You are slippery, it’s true, but that’s the fun of it.” He came closer again, and a vague, terrible grin curved his lips. “Once your mind is completely open, the physical pain will be so much worse. The breaking fingers. The lost teeth. The . . . other things.”
Rayna was so captured by the feverish glint of obsession in his eyes, she almost missed the flash of the bright blade in his hand. She tried to roll, but was too slow, and the short knife caught her just below the last left rib. Agony bloomed behind it, and blood spread in a growing red stain.
“Don’t move too much and that won’t kill you for quite some time.” Rex’s grin was like Death itself. “We have lots more to explore together before the end.”
Rayna drew a breath to curse him, but rampaging pain kicked her in the gut and darkness roared up out of nowhere to steal her sight, her hearing and, in the end, her tether to the world.
The team huddled against the thermocrete wall, out of reach now of the lights and sensors sweeping the cluttered loading area behind the Kinz factory. This was not one of the main loading docks, where materials went in and weapons went out. Those were heavily guarded at all hours of every shift. This was little more than a kitchen delivery door, crowded with noxious garbage disposal units and discarded containers, and it appeared unlit and unmanned as the third watch waned.
Sam waited with the others, muscles twitching in anticipation. He threw an unhappy glance at Daniel Chang. Until they got inside, this was the Pataran’s show. That didn’t mean Sam had to like it.
The door clanged open and a woman stepped out. She caught sight of Daniel and gestured at him. They all followed him inside.
The woman closed the door behind them and peered up at Daniel. “You’re really going to do this?”
“We don’t have a choice. The Thrane is planning to blow this place to Portal’s Hell. Where is Rayna?”
Her gaze flicked over at Sam and the others. “She went looking for him in the infirmary. That was an hour ago. Haven’t heard from her since. This the captain?”
Daniel nodded. “Sam Murphy of the Shadowhawk. He’s here for Rayna. Captain, this is Brilly Zan.”
Sam inclined his head. “Lainie made it back to the ship without a scratch. Thanks for your help.”
She shrugged. “My job. But your people were worth taking a risk for. Both of them. So what’s the plan?”
Sam looked at Daniel, and the Pataran nodded back at him. He acknowledged the hand-off with a lift of his chin.
He turned to Brilly. “You need to take Daniel and Chen, here, to the nearest auxiliary security office. Someplace where they can access the internal security comps. They’re going to trigger the fire alarms and make it hard to find the source, so everyone will be sent to the yard. Gabriel and I will find Rayna and the Thrane—kill him and bring her out. Once that’s done, we’ll open the gates and let the lucky ones out of here. We have a ship coming to pick them up.”
“Lucky ones? You mean the slaves?” Brilly looked horrified. “But they’ll be shot! The guards won’t let them just walk out of the gates!”
Daniel laughed. “No. But they will obey the Director’s orders. Provided we can get to him in all the chaos.”
Brilly exhaled in relief. “Oh, you leave that to me. I know how to get to that little slime lizard.”
“Okay, two hours until the beginning of the first shift. We need to have alarms blaring and people scrambling long before then.” Personally, Sam wanted to see Thrane blood spilled now. Everything in him was humming like the engines of his ship, primed for it.
He dismissed the others with a terse nod, then looked to Gabriel. “You have the layout?”
Gabriel tapped his temple. The wetware encoded in the man’s incredible brain made him a walking computer—no comps, datacards or pads needed for him to access any downloaded or networked information. Daniel had given him the layout of the facility on the ship; he’d simply stored it up there.
The two men moved out of the kitchen area and into an adjoining storage room stocked with cleaning equipment. There were no security cameras to track their movements in the room—or at its exit into a corridor on the other side. That corridor was one of several shortcuts used by staff in the facility—poorly lit, poorly secured and little traveled. Brilly and Daniel had highlighted those in the layout, and Sam used them now to find a route to the infirmary without encountering either people or cameras.
The double doors to the infirmary, however, were covered by an active security camera and required a comp code to pass through. A focused electromagnetic pulse took care of the cam, and they had the code from Brilly, but Sam knew better than to just waltz through the doors without recon. Had Rayna accomplished what she came to do? Or had the Thrane gotten the better of her? Were there others—guards? Innocents? He took a deep breath, trying to control his racing heart. This close-in shit was more Gabriel’s line of work.
As if he could hear him, the tracker stepped in front of him to the door, stunner at the ready. With a few signs, he indicated Sam should key in the code and follow him through.
Sam hit the pads. Gabriel slipped through an opening in the doors no bigger than his body and ran silently to a doorway leading to the reception desk on the right of a short hallway. Sam saw no one else in the facility as he followed the tracker inside and took out the interior cams with the pulse. But what he saw when he joined Gabriel inside the little reception office was bad news.
“She’s not sleeping on the job,” Gabriel said as he stood up from the nurse’s body sprawled on the floor. “The Thrane wiped her mind and left her unconscious. She’s barely got a pulse.”
All Sam could think was that the bastard had Rayna, but he tried for a second to have some compassion for the woman at his feet. “Will she be okay?”
The shake of Gabriel’s head was almost imperceptible. “He was in a hurry. We need to find your girl.”
Sam clamped down hard on his frustration. “Where?” The infirmary had been their only lead.
Fools Rush In (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 3) Page 30