The Calling had annoyed the courts as much as they'd annoyed everyone else.
And now she and the girls could leave the whole festering mess behind them.
The small, sleek pick-up seemed to drift downward like a floss seed on the wind as it came into the final approach, and Nyha was gripped with a need to just go.
But it was customary for the crew to get at least half an hour of off-ship time, and so there was no sense hurrying the girls to the bay yet.
She forced herself to sit on one of the benches and close her eyes, half-listening to the girls as they chatted to each other and took final scans of their surroundings.
She lifted her hands up and released her hair from the high, tight, twist she'd put it in this morning, shaking it out and massaging her scalp.
It felt blissful to have it down.
She usually kept it off her face because the color was less obvious that way, and she'd spent her life living on the razor's edge of refusing to deny her physiological roots, and her need to blend in to her new home.
Tying her long blue hair in a complex twist was probably a poor compromise, but it was the only way she could appease both deeply-held needs.
The girls had never drunk the waters of Halatia, with its minerals that changed the composition of its people's hair follicles, but their mothers had, and their hair was a paler, almost sky blue shade to her darker, brighter color. She could dye it, had been urged to shortly after she entered her teens, but that would have been denying her origins.
She refused.
A sharp, almost painful, spike of sound pierced her ear, and her eyes opened in surprise. The pick-up was out of her line of sight, having docked below the obs deck, and she stood and walked to the edge of the platform.
“Hello?” she said into the comms set, looking down at the smooth dark gray of the ship, neatly connected to the docking bay. “Captain?”
“Who is this?” The voice in her ear was deep and rough.
Nyha frowned. “You aren't Captain Farga.”
Captain Farga was a woman, and whoever she was speaking to was most definitely a man.
“No.” The man paused. “Who connected you to this channel?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she said a word, someone screamed below.
She stepped even closer to the edge and looked down, saw one of the Cepi security guards had fallen to the ground and a man in a dark blue Arkhor space crew uniform was standing over him.
She drew in a sharp breath.
“What is it?” the voice in her ear asked, but she ignored it, her gaze fixed on the scene below.
The security guard squirmed back a little, then tried to pull himself up.
The man in the blue uniform lifted both arms, and she realized there was a weapon in his hands. She called out a warning, but it was too late.
There was an audible buzz, and the guard fell back down and didn't move.
The man in the Arkhor crew suit turned his head, looking straight up at her, and Nyha stared back, eyes wide.
“Tell me what happened,” the man talking to her through the comm set demanded again.
“One of the pick-up crew just shot a Cepi security guard.” She spoke quietly, voice soft with shock.
“Then I have one word of advice for you,” the man said, low and urgent. “Run.”
Chapter 2
What in the Unknown . . . ?
Mak tore off his comm set, held it up and checked the frequency. After a moment of staring at numbers that made no sense, he shoved it back in place, too nervous to miss anything.
“What is it?” Vasouvy asked, but Mak held up a hand, frowning at the sudden silence from his mysterious speaker.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
“Yes.” The voice coming through was husky and breathless. It sounded like she was running. Which was good.
He heard her murmuring, speaking to someone else in urgent tones. Giving orders, it sounded like, and his frown deepened.
“Who's with you?”
She said nothing for a moment, and when she finally did speak, she kept her voice low but insistent. “Look, I'm not saying anything more to you until I know who you are. Catano said she'd recalibrated this comm set so I could speak to the captain of our pick-up, and you're not her.”
Things cleared up a little. “Catano did something to your comm set?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
More silence. “I told you, I'm not saying anything more--”
There was no way he could tell her he was the captain of an Arkhoran Special Forces team sent to keep watch over Cepi until its destruction, or that Catano was part of that team. Not without knowing who she was. And probably not even then. “My name is Mak. I'm part of Cepi's security forces. Now who are you, and who's with you?”
She was silent again. Thinking about whether to trust him, he guessed.
“If what you described to me is correct, someone just hijacked that pick-up in order to land on Cepi, and I don't think they're there to sightsee the ruins, so make your decision pretty damn fast.”
She sucked in a breath at his sharp tone.
“My name is Doctor Nyha Bartali. I'm here with my four charges from Arkhor to visit the ruins.”
The Halatians.
He knew who she was. Of course he did, he knew who everyone was on this pitiful excuse for a moon. But he hadn't thought about her and the four girls with her very much. They were clearly no threat, and they were going today.
He'd been assured . . . assured . . . that the pick-up vessel was clear when it came through the cordon the courts had ordered around Cepi.
Most of the cordon guards were Kalastoni, but at least some were Arkhoran and perhaps a few others were from other Verdant String planets. They'd been put there by the courts for oversight, but someone had been bought off, or whoever had taken control of the ship was just that good that they could fool an entire unit of Verdant String special operatives.
“Have you found a place to hide?” he asked her, a growing dread in his gut about what was going down.
She didn't answer him. When he repeated the question, the silence was deafening.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Vasouvy, his second-in-command, was a bit more insistent this time.
“Listen up, everyone.” He lifted his hand, made a come-here gesture with his fingers, and the five members of his team, excluding Catano, who was stuck deep inside whatever nightmare was going down at the ruins, drew closer. They were all Arkhoran. He was glad now he’d insisted on only working with his regular team. None of that Verdant String Cooperation Initiative bullshit.
If they'd had anyone else with them now, they’d all be wondering if there was a traitor in their midst. Probably a Kalastoni would have been okay. It was hardly likely they’d be endangering their own planet, but that left the other five planets of the Verdant String. He was happy no one had forced him to take anyone else on board.
They were nestled down in a camouflaged lookout on one of the three hills which overlooked the ruins. They wore full space gear, although it was of the lightweight, flexible variety, even though Cepi's mysterious gravity and atmosphere generator covered the whole tiny moon. Mak had insisted on taking all precautions.
No one was wearing their helmets, but they all had them at the top of their packs.
Mak knew, because he had the clearance, that the strange fluctuations in Cepi's gravity generator had led to it spinning off course and directly toward Kalastoni.
If they were going to sit here babysitting Cepi until almost the bitter end, they would not die because everyone trusted a problematic grav and enviro generator to keep them alive.
Mak studied the live feed of the ruins playing on the wall in front of him, drawn from the scanners they had pointed at the ancient structures. He crouched down and tried to make out what was happening at the docking bay.
“Zoom in,” he said, and Erenn moved to the equipment
near the door and suddenly they were looking at a group of blue-clad Arkhoran flight crew, one of whom was dragging a Cepi security guard away by his feet.
There was silence as the team absorbed their change in circumstances.
“They said the pick-up was cleared.” Vasouvy's voice had a bitter edge.
“They lied. Or were bribed. Or were simply fooled. That's for some internal investigation to uncover when this is all over.” Mak kept his own voice dry.
“What alerted you?”
“Looks like Catano was worried something was up. She hasn't gotten in touch with me, so either she's worried she’s being monitored, or her equipment's been tampered with.”
“If Catano hasn't been in touch, who were you talking to?” Vasouvy asked.
“Dr. Nyha Bartali.”
“The Halatian?” Fren rubbed the bristles on his chin. “How did she get in contact?”
“Catano must have calibrated her comm set to emergency override mode. Whenever the doc speaks, it comes through on my set. The doc told me Catano fiddled with it, and told her it was rebooting and would connect to the captain of her pick-up vessel. I'm guessing Catano was worried her comms were about to be shut down, but gambled that the Halatians might be overlooked. They're hardly a threat.”
“Where are the Halatians now?” Goojie had moved forward and was crouched down close to the wall, too. His eyes narrowed as they all watched one of the fake pick-up crew standing in the doorway of the small space craft that had been sent to fetch the doctor and her girls, throwing down weapons to the team below.
“I told them to hide. The last time I tried to talk to Dr. Bartali, she didn't answer me.”
“Couldn't?” Yari asked. He'd been leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his wide chest through the whole debrief.
Mak shrugged. “Most likely.”
“You think the insurgents know we're here?” Vasouvy asked.
“No idea.” And it was ruining his mood. “Catano obviously suspected they did know, or she wouldn't have set up the Halatian with the comm set. Or she thought someone on the inside suspected her of being a spy. Either way, we'll find out soon enough.”
“Are we going to let someone know about this?” Erenn asked. “I’m assuming Catano tried, if it was possible. But just in case she couldn’t.”
Mak gave a slow nod. “We’re not talking to those jokers sitting at the cordon points, though. And any signal we send out to Arkhor is going to take time.”
“So we have, what, a day before anyone turns up?” Yari guessed.
“Maybe longer.” Mak shrugged. “And for all we know, whoever let that fake crew through told them we’re here.”
“So what’s the plan?” Goojie straightened.
“We make sure they don’t find us.”
Also by Michelle Diener
Science Fiction Novels
Sky Raiders series:
Sky Raiders
Calling the Change
Shadow Warrior
Class 5 series:
Dark Horse
Dark Deeds
Dark Minds
Verdant String series:
Interference & Insurgency Box Set
Breakaway
Historical Fiction Novels
Susanna Horenbout and John Parker series:
In a Treacherous Court
Keeper of the King’s Secrets
In Defense of the Queen
Regency London series:
The Emperor’s Conspiracy
Banquet of Lies
A Dangerous Madness
Other historical novels:
Daughter of the Sky
Fantasy Novels by Michelle Diener
Mistress of the Wind
The Dark Forest series:
The Golden Apple
The Silver Pear
Short Paranormal Fiction
Breaking Out: Part I (Short story)
Breaking Out: Part II (Novella)
To receive notification when Michelle Diener’s next book is released, you can sign up to her new release notification list.
About the Author
Michelle Diener is an award winning author of historical fiction, science fiction and fantasy.
Michelle was born in London, grew up in South Africa and currently lives in Australia with her husband and children.
You can contact Michelle through her website or sign up to receive notification when she has a new book out on her New Release Notification page.
Connect with Michelle
www.michellediener.com
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to Edie, Justin and Jo for your eagle eyes and great suggestions as always, as well as to my awesome reader team! Thanks as always to EJR Digital Art for the truly beautiful cover!
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