by Rick Partlow
When it happened, it caught me by surprise, though it shouldn't have. We were moving through the uncompleted section of the dome, and the Guards were holding their carbines loosely, lulled into a false security by our acquiescence. West's eyes were ahead of us, and I saw behind them something of the discomfort I sensed he was having with all of this. Damiani seemed to be glowing with the triumph he felt was near.
Then, hearing a grunt of surprise from one of the guards, I turned and saw that Secarius was gone.
"In the ceiling!" One of the guards shouted, both of them swinging their weapons upward, to where the former street surgeon had used his tail to snag an overhanging beam and swing into the dark recesses between the foundation of the floor above us and the framework for the ceiling.
Before either of them could get off a shot, Kara and Mat slammed into them, smashing the guards against the wall, then dashing down the corridor. I only hesitated a heartbeat, the thought that I still didn't know where Rachel was uppermost in my mind, but it was long enough for Cowboy to pull his sidearm and jam it into my back.
All I could do was watch as the Guards recovered their fallen carbines and took off after my friends, disappearing around the corner.
"I'm broadcasting a full-station alert," Cowboy told Damiani, whose satisfied glow had transformed into a mask of displeasure. "They won't get far."
"I wouldn't count on that too heavily," I warned, putting a bite into my tone. I glanced meaningfully at West. "At least I know whose job I'll be taking over."
"Shut up," Cowboy snarled, jabbing me with the barrel of his rocket pistol.
"Control yourself, Roger," Damiani cautioned him. "This little setback was your responsibility, and I expect you to clean it up."
Another group of Executive Guards came running up to us, trailed by Trint, who seemed to tower over the others. "Find them," the Executive Director ordered West, gesturing emphatically down the corridor. "Especially that monstrosity."
"And when I find them?" Cowboy asked him, his mouth a hard line.
"They've made their decision," he said, his eyes on me. "Kill them...except for the woman. Bring her to my private office." West locked eyes defiantly with the man for a moment, but finally nodded and turned to the half-dozen Executive Guards.
"All but two of you come with me," he snapped, leading them away at a brisk trot.
"And what about me?" I wanted to know.
"Why, Constable Mitchell," he said, seemingly once more the picture of control, "I'm taking you exactly where you want to go---to see your wife."
Interlude: Rachel
Rachel snapped out each punch and kick of the poomse with an explosive grunt of exertion, picturing her fists and feet impacting on hordes of grey-clad CSF mercs. She'd practiced every day of the last month, trying to recall the lessons she'd been given by Cal during and after the War. Perhaps she was kidding herself, thinking she could overcome any of her armed captors using barely-remembered Tae Kwan Do techniques, but it was better than sitting on her ass.
She finished the complex form and paused to take a drink of water and run a sweat towel over her neck before continuing to the next level of poom-se. She could still picture the first time Cal had tried to show her unarmed combat techniques...it had been shortly after he'd landed on Canaan during the Occupation.
They'd been awkward with each other at first---so much had happened since they'd been teenage lovers, and they'd become different people. But she'd found herself attracted to the new sense of confident purpose Cal had found in his years in the service, and even attracted to the pain she saw behind his eyes. It matched a like pain inside her, a hollow in her soul caused by the death of her husband and daughter during the invasion.
She could barely remember their faces anymore. She hadn't felt any survivor's guilt, or even experienced the grief she'd expected. All she'd allowed herself to feel in the months after their deaths was hate, but Caleb had helped her to unlock the part of herself she'd banished in her desire for revenge. She believed she'd done the same for him as well. She didn't think about Harry and Angela too much...but in the years she and Cal had been together since the War, she had gently but firmly rebuffed any suggestion of having another child. Losing one had very nearly shut off a part of her psyche---she didn't want to think about the possibility of losing another.
She'd supported Cal when he'd had to physically fight his older brother for the leadership of the Resistance, but they were still hesitant with each other...until she'd come to his shelter to ask him to teach her some of the martial arts moves he'd used on Isaac. They'd begun with a few basic kicks, punches and blocks, and had gotten no further that Sleep Period because they'd wound up making love. Later, when he'd returned after the end of the War and accepted the job of Constable, he had showed her the forms he'd learned at the Academy, and she had practiced for a while before losing interest. Now, she wished she'd been more faithful at it.
Sighing softly, she dropped into her stance and began the next form, a complicated black belt maneuver.
She was in the middle of a spinning round kick when the cell door hissed open and Trint stepped in. She fought to keep from stumbling as she arrested her motion and came to a halt facing him, the ever-present question in her eyes: Is this it?
Trint nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Your husband is here, Mrs. Mitchell," he announced in a neutral tone.
A thrill went through her, a surge of hope that she hadn't felt in the weeks she'd been imprisoned, but she fought to keep herself under control. She nodded, stopping to wipe her face before following the Tahni out of the door. It was, she realized, the first time she'd left the cell since she'd arrived.
They made their way through a spacious anteroom filled with monitoring equipment, out into a narrow corridor that led a gently curving path around the complex. Rachel felt like a tourist, eyes darting here and there to try to take in as much of her surroundings as possible on her short journey. Most of the personnel she saw were technicians and workers assembling equipment or putting the finishing touches on the walls or ceiling---the place seemed to be still under construction.
She didn't notice a lot of guards, but those that were visible seemed a higher quality than the usual CSF hired guns. Suddenly, her martial arts practice seemed even more inadequate than before.
The halls began to widen as they entered a more completed section of the dome and, as they rounded a corner, she saw that they were approaching the double-wide doorway of a spacious maintenance bay.
"Wait for my move," Trint instructed her softly before they stepped into the chamber.
Standing in the center of the main bay was Cal. He was dressed in some kind of camouflaged combat suit and seemed unharmed, but the look on his face was one she'd never seen there before---almost one of surrender. When he saw her enter, a new light came into his eyes, as if a load were lifted from his shoulders, and he drew in a relieved breath.
"Oh, God," she sobbed, taking a step toward him. One of the Executive Guards stepped forward to block her way, but Damiani shook his head and the woman let her pass.
Rachel ran into his embrace, kissing him with all the passion and desperation she'd kept bottled inside her for the past months. She felt herself being lifted off the ground as he pressed her close against him and her arms tightened around his neck. All she wanted to do was hold him, to hold him for as long as she'd been separated from him. But there was something else she had to do.
"Watch for Trint's move," she whispered to him, softly enough, she hoped, to avoid being heard by the hyper-sensitive hearing of those around her. He gave no reply, but she could feel him stiffen slightly in her grasp.
"Enough," Damiani snapped, tiring of the maudlin exchange. Rachel's head snapped around at him, wondering if he'd somehow heard her, but he just motioned her back toward Trint.
She paused to kiss her husband softly before sliding away from him and moving across the chamber to where the Tahni cyborg waited.
"Are y
ou all right, honey?" Cal asked her, swallowing hard, lines of worry evident in his face.
"She's fine," Damiani interrupted impatiently, sitting on the edge of a work table, hands clasped in his lap. "The time, however, is come for your decision, my dear Monsieur Mitchell." He gave the name a French flourish, an affectation Rachel found rather pretentious from a man who Trint told her had grown up in orbit, speaking unaccented English.
In fact, though she hadn't met the Executive Director in person up to this point, she found his whole demeanor pretentious, as if he'd constructed his personality to impress others rather than from any internal motivation. He seemed, more than anything else, like a computer construct in a ViRdrama.
Cal started to open his mouth, but Andre held up a hand.
"Don't bother to avow your loyalty, please," he cautioned. "I've always believed in the old axiom that actions speak louder, but I have taken the liberty of arranging an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you are, indeed, willing to work with us."
Damiani's eyes seemed to glaze slightly, and Rachel guessed he was communicating with someone on a neurolink---she had seen Cal do the same thing before. Shuffling footsteps from behind them caused her to turn and face the room's entrance. Looming shadows shrank into the long-limbed form of a man, wearing the same kind of combat suit as Caleb, his hand filled with a big, skeleton-framed handgun.
It took her a moment---the hair was longer, the mustache bushier than she remembered---but she recognized the man as Roger West, one of Cal's teammates from the War, the one Trint had identified as the traitor. Behind him, held at gunpoint by a pair of guards, a trickle of blood running from a cut on her forehead, was Kara McIntire.
Chapter Sixteen
"Ran smack into one of our security stunners," I heard Cowboy announce smugly, over the sinking feeling on my stomach.
"I'll be okay," Kara said in answer to the question she must have seen in my eyes. "They...they killed Mat, Cal."
I fought back an agonized moan, feeling as if she'd punched me but not wanting to let Damiani see it. Things were falling apart, every opportunity to get out of this slipping away.
"Strip off her armor," Damiani ordered. I glanced at him sharply, heat travelling up the back of my neck, wondering just what the hell he was up to.
With West's gun on her, two of the Executive Guards worked at the fastenings of her combat suit, pulling it off of her roughly, leaving her clad only in a cut-off tank top and panties. She seemed so vulnerable, standing almost naked in the midst of the enemy, but her expression remained hard and defiant.
"This isn't necessary." I turned on Andre, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. "I'll do what you want."
Damiani shook his head. "You're a man with too much of a conscience for your own good, Constable. For me to trust your conversion, we're going to have to sear that conscience with a hot iron." The man chuckled at the Biblical reference. He turned to the Guards. "Put her in the airlock."
"No!" I blurted, starting to surge forward, but Damiani nodded to Trint, who grabbed Rachel and put his hand threateningly close to her neck.
I froze in mid-step. Despite what Rachel had whispered to me, one flick of the Tahni's wrist could snap her neck. One of the Guards hit the controls to the maintenance airlock, opening the inner hatch with a metallic rasp, and the other shoved Kara inside. The door ground closed, but Kara's face was still visible through the small porthole in the inner lock door.
"Now," Damiani continued, sliding off the table and pacing past Rachel, coming almost nose-to-nose with me, "you probably know that the atmosphere outside this dome isn't the most hospitable---Captain McIntire would probably last two to three minutes in it. It won't be a quick or pleasant death. I'm giving you a choice. You can go over to the airlock and cycle her out of it, or I will have Trint here break your lovely wife's neck."
Time froze for me in the seconds after Damiani spoke those words. Up till that point, I'd dared to think that there might be a way out of this for us, that I could buy our lives with the sacrifice of my conscience. Now, I knew that nothing less than my life would suffice.
I guess I should have been grateful to her and the others for forcing me into it, for "saving my soul," but instead I was vaguely pissed...we'd been so close to coming out of it all alive.
I took one last, long look at Rachel. God, I loved her. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for all this---sorry that I'd taken her from the only life she'd ever wanted, to get her killed out here so far from home. But I couldn't say it now.
My gaze went from her to the airlock port, to Kara's face, which was pressed up against it. What a Goddamned mess. I wished I could tell her I was sorry, too---sorry we couldn't have met fifteen years ago and given this some more attention. But I couldn't say that, either.
All I could do was wonder just what this Trint was supposed to do.
Interlude: Trint
This was the time. He didn't know what contingency plans Rachel's husband might have, but he couldn't wait any longer---it was now or never. One hand still on Rachel Mitchell's throat, he used the other to reach into his left utility pocket and activate the jamming device he had built.
Much as he wanted to kill Damiani, he had to take out West first---the ex-commando was the most serious threat. He'd have to trust to Constable Mitchell to handle the Guards and Damiani.
If it worked...it had to work. He had been a slave for too long.
He moved. Rachel Mitchell fell startled to the floor as he let go of her and launched himself across the room at Roger West. Nearly a decade of frustration, humiliation and rage fueled the attack that the Tahni launched on West, and it was much more than the human was prepared for. Trint connected with three devastating shots that threw Cowboy halfway across the room before the ex-Glory Boy managed to extend his talons.
In a sentient fury unlike any he'd ever permitted himself before, Trint nearly forgot about Damiani and the implant bomb. His purpose---his very existence---had become the killing of the man who had brought him to this life of slavery.
West finally got his feet beneath him and lashed into the cyborg with his implant blades, sending strips of grey cloth and spatters of blood flying. The superficial damage did little to deter Trint, however, who responded with a leaping kick that could have crushed in the human's head. Cowboy managed to fall beneath it and the thunderous blow slammed into the reinforced duralloy wall, ringing off of it like a cathedral bell.
The ex-commando scrambled away, and Trint lost him for a moment in the throng of flailing bodies that filled the bay. Spinning around toward the airlock, the Tahni cyborg saw Rachel Mitchell locked in a struggle with Andre Damiani, trying to keep him away from the control panel. Even as he watched, the Council Executive got inside her guard and delivered a palm-heel strike beneath her chin. The woman collapsed backwards, and Damiani turned, reaching the airlock controls.
Forgetting West, the cyborg surged forward, so intent on stopping Damiani from killing the McIntire woman that he didn't see West rising from his crouch with his rocket pistol in his hand...
"Trint!" she screamed.
The cyborg spun around at her cry, just as West fired, altering the impact that would have taken off the Tahni's head. A pale trail of smoke connected the barrel of the handgun with Trint's torso for a split second, and then there was the sharp crack of an explosion and the bitter tang of ozone as a puff of flame blossomed on the cyborg's chest. He flew back into the rear wall, and slumped motionless.
Rachel felt the wisp of hope she'd sheltered beginning to slip away, and looked around her with a sense of utter helplessness. Cal had put down one of the Guards, but was still entangled with the second, and Roger West was bringing his gun around toward him. Damiani hesitated in front of the airlock controls for just a moment, looking into Kara's eyes and smiling cruelly. Then he hit the button to open the outer hatch.
Chapter Seventeen
I'd been watching, but I was still almost caught flatfooted when the cyborg moved.
Still, old instincts---and old programming---die hard, and when Trint's hand came off of Rachel's neck, I was heading for the airlock. I had to free Kara, not only for her safety but to increase our odds of winning this fight.
I had nearly the perfect opportunity---the Executive Guards were torn for a moment between stopping me or going to the aid of Roger West, and that fraction of a second was all I needed to cross the distance to the airlock. The only thing between me and the controls was Andre Damiani.
I don't know where he got the gun. I hadn't detected it on him before, but I suppose someone with that much money could have an undetectable weapon. In the half-breath I had to examine it as he brought it up, I concluded it was a laser, and I was fairly sure it wouldn't penetrate the Reflex Armor I still wore. Unfortunately, I wasn't wearing any armor on my head, which was exactly where he was aiming.
I threw my arms over my face and barreled blindly into him, just as the weapon went off. Heat washed across my arms and face, and I felt what was likely a nasty burn across my left forearm before we tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs. I found the barrel of the pistol with my right hand and jerked it from his grasp, slamming his head back with a forearm to free me from his thrashings.
I surged to my feet, reaching for the controls, but the delay had allowed the Guards time to prioritize, and they opened fire on me before I'd straightened up. That was probably what saved my life: they had aimed high to avoid hitting Damiani, who was also getting up from the floor, and the fusillade of pulses impacted on the wall behind me.
I didn't bother trying to take the Guards out with my appropriated handgun---it wouldn't have gone through their armor any more than it would have mine---but there was a target for the little pistol. I dropped to one knee behind the rising Council Director and fired two quick bursts, targeting the curved magazines of their pulse carbines. The crimson threads intersected the thermoplastic boxes, igniting in each the hyperexplosive lasing cartridges and blowing the carbines apart in a shower of sparks.