Awakening Defiance: (The Saoirse Saga Book 2)

by Teagan Kearney

  The suite they wanted was easy to spot—it had darkened windows, and as the intruders barged in, the guard on duty at a desk, monitoring a small console, stumbled to his feet, reaching for his weapon.

  “Don’t.” Nagavi ordered. He turned to Onde, shaking him until his teeth rattled. Tell them to open up the inner sector.”

  “Do as they say.” The surgeon stuttered.

  The guard was tense but hit the release, and the internal door slid open.

  Kia pushed past him and ran inside, the team sliding in after her.

  “Lock the outer door,” Nagavi ordered. After the man complied, he brought the butt of his rifle down on his head and left the unconscious man slumped over the console.

  Inside the inner room, a nurse stood by the bed, her eyes skipping from one to another of the heavily-armed, black-visored men and women flooding into the room as fear sapped the color from her cheeks.

  Removing her helmet as fast as she could, Kia stood by the bed and gasped at the sight of Rial.

  He lay much as she had last seen him, except they’d shaved his head, and it was now covered in a gold-brown stubble. He was unconscious, restrained, and with needles in both his arms. His skin was translucent, and his veins, deep purple, stood out in stark contrast. He’d been here for five days and lost weight; his cheeks were sunken and his too prominent ribs rose and fell in time with his rapid breathing.

  Kia was appalled. How many times had he been in the stasis chamber already? If Onde wasn’t essential to extract the device, she would have shot him there and then. “Where in the cycle are you?” Her voice was cold, her emotions locked down, nonetheless, she seethed with disgust for everyone in this place. They had all collaborated with the emperor in this travesty. How could they do this to Rial?

  “We’ve almost finished draining—”

  “Take out the needles and stop it.” Kia snapped, shoving the nurse aside. She and Nagavi released the restraints, their fingers moving fast.

  “Oh, I can’t do that. The emperor wants—”

  The nurse dropped to the floor with an oomph as Kia tapped her hard on the head with the butt of her phaserifle. “We don’t have a lot of time. Move her out of the way.”

  “Put your hand on the wound,” Toinen said as he dragged the moaning woman to the side as her head began to bleed, “and be quiet.”

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Doctor Onde muttered as he pulled the needle out of Rial’s arm, slapped a piece of tape over the vein, moved to the other side and removed the second needle.

  “Neither is what you’re doing to him,” Kia retorted. “Don’t speak and do as you’re told.” She pulled a syringe out of her pocket, uncapped it, removed the tape on Rial’s arm, and found the spot where Onde’s needle had been inserted. She slid the needle in and pushed the plunger down.

  “You can’t do that! You’ll kill him!” The surgeon was outraged.

  “I am the Heir’s consort and in charge of the Chenjerai at this moment. Listen to me carefully. I’m giving you a choice. You can take out his implant or I’ll kill you.” Kia’s voice was low, controlled, but filled with fierce determination. With or without the implant, she was taking him out of here. She removed the syringe, took the second one from Nagavi, and repeated the action. “Can you operate in here?”

  The weaselly man eyed the syringe, his gaze moving to Kia, something becoming clear to him as he watched her blood enter Rial’s system. He grabbed her arm. “That blood… is it yours? It’s adapted to the nanobots hasn’t it?” His face lit up with excitement. “Think what this means.”

  Kia looked at Nagavi, whose arm moved with such speed the doctor’s feet were six inches off the floor before he realized what was happening.

  “You don’t get to touch her,” Nagavi growled.

  The doctor did his best to nod as Nagavi’s fingers squeezed his esophagus.

  “They’re coming this way,” Toinen hissed.

  “Doctor?” Nagavi had loosened his hold on the man’s neck, but he tightened it again. Nodding to Toinen, he indicated the medic, and the big man squatted down by the woman, putting his hand over her mouth. “Shh.”

  The cracking of boots hitting the floor at a run came closer.

  “Check the entrance,” someone ordered, and they heard the door rattle as the guards tried to slide it open.

  Kia pressed her weapon to Onde’s forehead and brought her face close to his. “Get rid of them.”

  “The Heir is safe, he’s sleeping, Officer Amadain. Go and check the entrances,” Onde called out.

  The boots clattered off.

  “The implant, Onde,” Kia said. “This is your chance to continue breathing.”

  “Wheel him through there.” He indicated a door at the back of the room.

  “Have you got something for her?” Toinen asked, nodding at the moaning medic on the floor.

  Onde pulled a flat container out of his pocket and produced a translucent patch. “This will help coagulation and ease the pain.”

  Kia didn’t want to think about why Onde had such medication to hand in his pocket.

  While Toinen administered the patch, Kia grabbed the side of the bed and helped push it into a small operating theatre .

  “Turn him over,” the physician ordered, “and pull him up to the top of the mattress.”

  With Rial lying on his stomach, the doctor pressed a button on the side of the bed, and a padded chin rest rose from the top of the bed, cupping his chin.

  “I need to get my instruments,” the surgeon gestured to a row of cabinets nearby.

  “No problem.” Nagavi stayed right behind Onde as he lifted out several implements including a laseblade with the thinnest of cutting edges. “And forget any ideas about using that except for getting rid of the device.”

  “Someone must hold his head. I don’t have time to set up the proper restraints.” The doctor sprayed a protective coating over his hands and positioned himself at the top of the bed looking down at Rial, the various tools of his trade on a small tray he attached to the bedframe.

  Kia wondered how many times he’d performed the same surgery, and her hand shook as she struggled to contain her reactions.

  “Toinen.” Nagavi beckoned him over, and the muscular, stocky soldier removed his helmet and climbed onto the bed. With his knees either side of Rial’s upper back, he leaned forward and gripped Rial’s head in his brawny hands.

  “Explain as you proceed,” Kia told him.

  “This is a depilatory antiseptic that removes his hair and makes the area sterile.” Onde sprayed a white foam over the base of Rial’s skull. After he swiped the area with a wipe, a strip of scalp was free of stubble. He dropped the wipe into a container hanging from the tray.

  “This is a mild anesthetic that also seals the blood vessels near the skin’s surface.” The surgeon spritzed a pale blue mist over the bald patch. “Next, I make an incision and detach the mechanism.” Making a narrow cut, he inserted a row of micro-instruments into the opening. “These are self-retaining retractors that allow me to access the device.” He gave a sigh of exasperation. “Is that enough? I have to concentrate. You,” he pointed at Toinen, “hold him completely still. Any movement and this,” he waved his scalpel, “could erase our patient’s hearing, sense of touch, his memories. Please understand, I need total silence from here on.”

  “Take it easy. Don’t get antsy,” Toinen muttered.

  For the following half hour Kia stood next to Onde without moving, suppressing the itch to tap her feet or tell him to hurry, watching him deftly use the laseblade to delicately snip filament after filament, disconnecting the intricate wires extending in and around the folds of gray and white matter, fat, water, dendrites, axons and neurons that comprised Rial’s brain. Afterward, where necessary, he sealed blood vessels to prevent bleeding after he extracted the deeply embedded wires.

  Flesh and blood and cells and muscles and tissue and bone and heart and lungs and liver, Kia thought. Rial’s strength, courag
e, and patience didn’t live in his body. They lived in his soul, but where in the body did the soul live? For wasn’t it the soul that made the person? Her train of thoughts was interrupted by Onde.

  “See those rosy areas?” the doctor pointed to where he’d removed the wires. “That’s the nanobots rushing in to heal the damaged cells.”

  “How much longer?” Kia asked.

  They could hear pulse beam rifles firing, but the fighting wasn’t close by. Tamaiko and the Chenjerai, with Gorau’s help, were keeping up their assault on the other side of the building.

  “There, done! It’s a beautiful work of art, isn’t it?” The surgeon admired the tiny white dot in his palm.

  Kia knocked it to the floor and brought her boot heel down hard. “Seal him up.” She waved her gun at Onde.

  Onde looked at her with pure hatred but returned to his task. Removing the retractors, he held the flaps of skin together and squirted a pink liquid over the incision. As they watched, the red line faded and almost disappeared. “There, he’s yours. Please, leave.”

  “Slow down, doc. We’re not finished,” Nagavi said. “Moving him won’t cause any damage?”

  “Not unless you drop him on his head.”

  Toinen jumped down and rolled Rial over.

  Kia produced another two syringes of blood and pumped them into his veins. “Give him a stim,” she commanded.

  “That’s not advisable in his state.” The little man had been calm and in control during the surgery, but now his eyes flicked around the room.

  “You have no authority here anymore. I told you once, and if I have to repeat myself, one of these two,” she indicated Nagavi and Toinen, “will shoot you. Give. Him. A. Stim.”

  The doctor, Nagavi at his shoulder, fetched a stimpatch from his cabinet.

  Between Kia’s blood and the removal of the implant, Rial’s color had lost its deathly pallor, and as soon as she applied the stimpatch to his arm, his eyes flickered open.

  “Rial, it’s time to go.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead.

  He looked at her, blinked few times, took in Nagavi, Toinen, and the doctor staring down at him. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  The look in his eyes melted her heart. “Yes, and you'll never have another.”

  “Nagavi?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Help me up.”

  Nagavi supported Rial as he rose from the bed.

  “Your pistol, commander.” Rial took the proffered weapon and pointed it at the doctor. Before Onde could raise his arms to protect himself, he fell to the floor, a tiny round hole in the center of his forehead.

  Chapter Seventeen: A Clean Slate

  "We have to get moving, the fight’s coming this way,” Rial said.

  Everyone quietened, listening, and a smile crossed Nagavi’s face. “Oh, that’s my lad.”

  “I’ve one place to visit before we leave—the Hall of Clones.”

  With Nagavi leading, Shaba and Cheydii flanking him, Rial between Toinen and Kia, and the rest of the team protecting their rear, they abandoned the place of Rial’s imprisonment and torture.

  Kia sucked in a deep breath. The primary stages of the plan, the most difficult, had worked. She swallowed. From here on it should be a breeze. All they had to do was get him back to the flagship and obliterate the complex. Easy.

  The battle was coming closer, and they hurried as Rial directed them through a shortcut to the hall. The corridor leading to the Hall of Clones was empty and silent, and they slipped inside, the clones eerily spooky in the dim light.

  Rial’s gaze slid along the stasis chambers, his lips pulled back in a grimace. He leaned heavily on Kia, and when they reached halfway, he stopped. “Your weapon, please, Kia,” he said, swaying as he took the phaserifle from her. He shifted behind her and balanced the weapon’s long, matte barrel on her shoulder.

  Kia squinted as a brilliant beam swept through the gloom, throwing the ghoulishly morbid figures into sharp relief. The stasis chambers cracked open with a deafening boom, and the macabre bisected figures sprawled forward, almost in slow motion, as the fluid gushed out, its abrasive odor stinging and making her eyes water.

  Rial turned around, moving Kia with him, and fired a second burst, and another ear-splitting blast reverberated through the hall as the second row of chambers fractured. The liquid flooded out, sweeping away the last of the severed figures.

  Kia grabbed the rifle as it slid from Rial’s grasp and wrapped her arm around his waist as he sagged against her.

  “We have to leave,” Nagavi hissed, as a large squad of guards rushed into the hall, yelling and waving their phaserifles. The Chenjerai encircled Rial, their weapons raised and ready to fire.

  “Put down your weapons. Now!” A tall figure stepped forward. “Or we shoot.” Bright torches shone in their eyes, half blinding them.

  “Where did all the water come from?” another man shouted

  Beams of light jigged down, up, and around the room.

  “Sir, sir, the clones are gone!”

  Every torch in the room flickered and bounced off the broken empty stasis cabinets.

  “Captain! The clones! Look!” As the speaker’s torch illuminated several bifurcated torsos, a collective gasp of horror sprang from the shocked men.

  “Captain Erraz, I’m sure you recog—”

  Someone shone a torch into Rial’s face, and the captain dropped to his knees—ignoring the stasis fluid soaking into his pants—followed by his men. “Forgive me, Lord Rial.”

  The torch beams wavered over Kia and his guards.

  “My Chenjerai are protecting me, captain, I am safe. Have you found the traitor who dares to execute such blasphemous deeds?”

  “No, my Lord, but coms are out, and the defense shield is down.”

  “Resume your search for the attackers, captain.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As the soldiers rose and turned to leave, under his breath and in such a soft voice that Kia wasn’t sure she heard correctly, Rial ordered, “Fire.”

  In less than the time it takes to inhale a single breath, the Chenjerai had discharged their phaserifles, and the men toppled to the floor, their red blood mingling and clouding the sloshing stasis liquid.

  Kia was stunned.

  “Don’t be sorry for them, Kia,” Rial said, his voice flat, “They would have shot you and returned me to the medical unit with no hesitation. What’s the plan, commander?”

  “Tamaiko’s got the Kadaugan ready and waiting,” Nagavi responded. “Can you walk?”

  Rial nodded, his hand on Kia’s shoulder.

  Nagavi led them out of the building, remaining inside the perimeter fence this time. Keeping Rial in the center, and staying far enough from the lab to evade detection, they stole through the undergrowth, avoiding the areas illuminated by the windows. Shafts of rainbow colors cut through the tree cover as pulse beams scored the earth. The attack from above was continuous, and the distinct pff pff of phaserifles came from somewhere ahead.

  “There’s at least thirty of them headed toward us,” Shaba hissed. “They may seek to retake Rial.”

  Kia started at the warning. She’d hooked her helmet onto her weapons belt because she hadn’t wanted the vidscreen to distract her from keeping Rial on his feet, relying on the others to protect them. Currently, without the advantage the infoscreen gave, she was blind to threats and fear skittered fast on tiny feet under her skin.

  “Be calm, Kia. Nagavi and the Chenjerai will protect us,” Rial whispered in her ear.

  “Over here,” Toinen hissed, pulling Rial and Kia into the thicker bushes nearer the boundary. “Take him in there,” he pointed deeper into the underbrush, “and wait here until I return,” he told Kia, giving her a push and disappearing into the shadows.

  Kia grabbed Rial’s wrist and tugged him with her as she ducked into the bushes. They’d barely gone a few paces when she paused midstep as the thudding feet of soldiers barged through the trees nea
rby.

  “The kidnappers are here somewhere,” somebody hissed as they ran past.

  Kia pushed on, ignoring the niggle at the word ‘kidnappers’, dragging Rial with her as far as possible into the dense thickets. Someone had discovered the dead doctor, and who knew what version of events the nurse had told? She should have killed the woman instead of merely wounding her. She tugged Rial down as she scooted under a thick branch. “I wish I had a few more syringes of blood to give you,” she murmured.

  Rial’s answer was to lean his head on her shoulder. “I need a minute,” he said.

  She couldn’t see his expression, but she felt his head loll. He was barely conscious. She reached around to unhook her helmet—and stilled.

  The crackle of dried leaves and someone trying, and failing, to tread noiselessly was far too close.

  Another vibrant streak of kaleidoscopic color lit up the tangle of greeneries, and near enough to reach out and touch, a soldier searching the undergrowth slunk past.

  Kia’s hand hovered over Rial’s mouth, ready to clamp down if needed.

  “Nobody in here, Captain.”

  The guardsman moved on, and Kia breathed out. Where was Nagavi? Either he was drawing the searchers away or, more likely, seeing as how they were outnumbered, he’d given orders to pick the fighters off individually—these circumstances lent themselves well to knife work.

  Rial stirred.

  She whispered in his ear, “Nod if you can move.”

  He clasped her arm, and his head moved on her shoulder.

  “Come on, do as I do.” She got down on her hands and knees and crawled in the opposite direction from the man, turning and checking every few minutes that Rial was following. Sooner than expected, she bumped into the perimeter fence.

  Rial slumped, his back touching the metal links. His eyes were closed and his breathing rapid. She needed to get him to the flagship’s medunit. If she could get through the barrier, they could move faster. She listened to the pff pff of phaserifles fading into the distance and released her new knife from its boot sheath. She gripped the handle, rubbed her thumb over the upraised jewel, and swiped through the magwire with no more effort than slicing cake. A brief burst of relief swept through her as she looped Rial’s arm over her shoulders, hauled him to his feet, maneuvered him through the gap, and hacked her way through the dense vegetation with a single goal in mind—reach the Kadaugan.