by Susan Kelley
Emma let go of him and walked to a stack of metal crates. “Here.” She pushed on the boxes, and they moved slightly.
Vin handed her the laser and slid the crates aside. A dark cave-like doorway opened into the stone wall. The scent of underground wafted out. Emma stepped in, knocking aside spider webs coated with so much dust they looked like ragged black lace. He followed her in and pulled the crates back across the opening.
The narrow tunnel had a series of step downs, not really stairs but uneven expanses of level rock that would end with a single step down to the next one. Some of the drops were so high that Vin helped Emma down. The surrounding rock wasn’t quarried or contrived, but real stone buried beneath the soil of this world. It would have been a huge enterprise to carve this hole. At least with the rock surrounding them, Vin no longer worried the admiral could detect them with heat sensors, not through this much natural stone and dirt.
“How did you know of this?” Vin took over the lead but let Emma hold the laser. By his estimation they’d passed under the castle walls. “Where does this exit?”
“This is how I escaped before. My stepfather didn’t know I was gone for two days.” Emma laughed, the sound echoing like a music note repeating over and over again. “I was off world and under the grid by then. It opens into an empty lot a few blocks from the manor.”
The tunnel leveled out for nearly thirty feet and ended at a solid rock wall with narrow ridges carved into it. Vin went first, climbing nearly thirty feet to a metal trapdoor fixed flat with the ground. Near the top, the stone was once again that manufactured by men instead of nature. A perfect, waterproof seal protected the door.
Vin spun the wheeled latch and heard the catch release. He lifted the heavy, metal trap door and wondered how Emma had done it by herself. The gray light of an overcast day greeted them.
Pulling his gun free, Vin held the cover upright for cover in case anyone lurked behind them. Only after making sure the lot was empty did he offer his hand to Emma. He lifted her out the last few feet, amazed at how light she was for the amount of strength in her wiry body. For some reason she laughed a little.
Vin took the laser from Emma and reset it for a focused beam before turning it off. After stowing it behind his belt again, he oriented himself to their location. The top of the castle peeked out over the roofs of the surrounding business. He’d hidden his hover on the opposite side of the castle from where they were. “We need to get away from here.”
Emma stared at the castle. “Will they expect us to head for the space port?”
“Or the military station.”
“Not there. That’s where they kidnapped me from. And I don’t want to lead them back to Vannie. He’s injured pretty severely.”
Vin hadn’t known. His fault again. “I haven’t scouted out hiding places.” City operations made him uncomfortable with their milling civilians and the constant battle to fit in though he’d improved so much on that part.
“Where were you before you came to get me?”
“On a rooftop.”
“Let’s go there. I need to see if my message got through.”
“I guess they won’t be expecting us to stay nearby.” Perhaps he could keep Emma safe and still get the admiral.
* * * *
Emma needed Vin’s help to climb to the top of the building. She’d known the owners of the café all her life. Her mother had often walked to the little restaurant for fresh baked goods or delicious fruity ices. Emma had later visited the family run business and learned much about baking and cooking from the kind owners. Only as she reached her teens had she realized her mother had frequented the tradesmen along the avenues around their home as a way to financially support her neighbors. And the people of Brand had loved her mother for it. All that was before the pretty young widow married Ben Lester. He’d thought the quality of the local merchants beneath his notice.
Vin led her to the side of the wide chimney, putting it between them and the manor. She sank to the roof with her back to it, shivering a little in the cool morning air.
Kneeling beside her, Vin took off his pack. He pulled out a sack of water and a bag filled with dried fruit and salty protein nuggets. For the first time since the attack on Hovel Port, Emma wanted food. As she dug into the meal packs Vin crawled on his belly to the edge of the roof overlooking the manor.
After satisfying the worst of her hunger Emma joined him. At least a dozen guards walked in the grassy area between the outer wall and the manor. One of them stood on the top of the ladder examining the camera on the nearest corner.
“Is that where you went over the wall?” Emma scooted close to Vin so her shoulder leaned into his. After the stress of the last few days she wanted nothing more than to be held in his arms.
“Near there.”
“Which door did you go in?” Even the sound of his voice, though his words were so few, comforted her and made her feel safe.
“I went in a window.”
“How did you do that without setting off an alarm? All the windows on the first two floors have special tamper proof sills.”
“I went in a fifth floor window.”
Emma closed her eyes, unable to stop the image of him using minute finger and toe holds to scale the tall building. And how had he opened a window? She shivered though the sun now warmed the day to comfortable. “Do you think they’re still searching inside the house for me?”
Vin pulled a device from his utility belt that held all kinds of pockets and gadgets besides his two guns. He held it to his eyes, some kind of viewing goggles, and swept it across the manor grounds. “There are guards on every floor, but I can’t tell how many or even what they’re doing. These only see through one wall.”
They watched for an hour, Emma dozing off now and then in the comfort of the sun and Vin’s muscular form pressed alongside her length. She was half dreaming, imagining herself in Vin’s narrow cot on Merris Five. Vin nudged her awake and the lovely dream evaporated.
“Someone’s coming.” Vin twisted toward the street perpendicular to the front gate of the manor. “Ten military men and two civilians. Maybe they finally noticed you’d gone missing from their base.”
Emma adjusted her position so she could see. “She came.”
Vin gave her a questioning look but she didn’t take the time to explain. She stood up and walked to the back of the building, ignoring his warning to get down.
“Emma,” he whispered as he caught up to her. “They’ll see you.”
“We have to get down there, Vin. I can’t let her go in alone.”
“Who? That woman with the soldiers?”
Tears filled Emma’s eyes.
Vin looked startled and backed up a step. “What did I do?”
Emma tried to smile, but joy battled against the fear so her mouth couldn’t quite form the right expression. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Vin. We can’t let her meet Ben alone. She didn’t bring enough men with her.”
“Ten soldiers….”
“Against Ben’s dozens.”
“Lester won’t start a fight with real soldiers. It will bring the entire base after him.”
“If he’s desperate enough, he will. He’s killed before, my bodyguard and my mother’s. And you know many others, including Moe, have died on his orders.”
“Those were on the fringes of civilization. No one will ever know about them. This is a big city on a planet in the inner quadrant.”
Emma realized he didn’t know where they were. He’d just followed her, not pausing or caring to find out where he was in the universe. “We’re on Brand, my home planet. This is the city of Brand.”
“I’ve heard of Walter Brand. He was the original partner of Geoff Hadrason and kept him in line. After he died Hadrason turned to his criminal ways.’
“Yes.” Emma searched for a way down. How did Vin make the climbing look so easy? “Help me.”
“You have to stay here, Emma.”
“I can’t, Vin.
That’s my mother down there. Ben will kill her for real this time.”
Chapter Twenty
Emma explained how her mother had faked her own death after helping Emma disappear. Ben Lester had tied so many legal knots around them that her mother, Sandra, had feared for both their lives. With only her trusted attorney at her side, Nate Ward, Sandra had faked a ship accident and went into hiding. She and Emma had arranged a secret way to communicate but thought they could better hide if separated.
Her mother and Nate had expected to need at least a year to gather the information needed to rid themselves of Ben Lester. The problem had been whom to trust.
Vin helped Emma to the ground while she talked rapidly. “Of course, you and the other Recon Marines exposed Hadrason and my stepfather, making things easier for my mother. I expect she would have come out of hiding earlier if you had caught Ben before now.”
“I haven’t caught him yet.” Vin tried to put all the new information into context. “I thought you said your mother was dead.”
“I let everyone think that to protect her.” She touched his face. “I’m sorry, Vin. I have more explaining to do.”
By the time they rounded the corner of the building, Emma’s mother and her escort had already passed through the gate. Vin felt the situation careening out of his control. Would the soldiers with Sandra treat him like an enemy? The army believed him dead.
The lock on the closed gate would resist any thing he could do with his heat laser. Though he could scale the wall with ease, Emma could not. She walked up to the identity lock and pressed her thumb on the scanner. The gate swung open.
Confusion held Vin in place. Why would the admiral have programmed Emma’s identity into the gate? And her mother would have had to be an accepted owner of the security also. His questions went unasked as the whistle of small arms fire broke the morning stillness. Louder reports of military grade weapons interspersed. Finally something he understood.
“Stay here!” he ordered Emma with no hope she’d obey. He pulled both guns and charged the massive front door that hung halfway open.
The admiral’s mercenaries raced toward the same spot from their patrols inside the walls. They handled their weapons slower than Vin. He aimed for their midsections, disabling more than killing. Three to the left and then three to the right. The last two men to fall managed wild shots, showing a lack of experience in shooting on the run. He leaped up the entrance steps before all their bodies hit the ground. Emma’s light footsteps followed a dozen steps behind him.
A dead soldier sprawled two steps inside the doorway. The grand entrance reminded Vin of one of the training games from his youth. A chaotic battle raged with the soldiers cowering in a doorway to the left, firing at the admiral’s mercenaries taking cover back a wide hallway and holding the high ground on the curving stairway.
Vin’s first shots took out the two shooters on the stairs and his next sent the men in the hallway diving behind padded benches. He protected Emma with his body and by constant fire as she cried out and hurried towards her mother and the soldiers.
Sparing the soldiers a glance, Vin saw at least three more were wounded and no officer crouched among them to issue orders. So he did. “You three, cover fire back the hall. Don’t let them move. You with the rifle, keep an eye on the front door. Emma, stay with your mother.”
Vin took the steps four at a time. Twelve steps up and he had a better angle on the mercenaries back the hall. Near the front door, the soldiers gathered their wounded as their professionalism finally surfaced. They retreated toward the entrance.
Emma looked up at Vin and gestured for him to join them.
Vin shook his head and caught the gaze of the young soldier taking charge of his comrades. Waving his hand in a short arc, Vin gave the man the hand signal meaning he would reconnoiter and cover the retreat. To his relief, the soldier nodded understanding and signaled back agreement with a quick touch to his chest.
As the group inched outside, Vin concentrated on the sounds on the second floor. None. He held his position on the steps with its excellent view until the last soldier moved outside the front entrance. Then Vin hopped over the banister and charged back the hallway.
Three wounded mercenaries stared at him with open mouths as he came upon them in a carpeted room big enough to sleep a full squadron. Only one managed to lift his weapon before Vin finished them. He continued through a dining area and entered a kitchen. Civilians crouched behind a counter. He ignored them continuing on to a small foyer with a fancy door, twin to the front one.
Vin jerked the door inward. Backing up a few steps he took a running jump out the door and sailed twenty feet beyond the door and onto the thick grass. No patrols wandered the grounds. He spun and scanned the upper windows and roof. Where had the admiral gone?
A shout from the front of the castle jolted him into action. He sprinted faster than he’d ever run in his life. He recognized the admiral’s commanding voice before he rounded the corner.
“Do you want the blood of these young men on your hands, Sandra?” Lester shouted.
Vin analyzed the scene between one step and the next. The six unwounded soldiers tried to protect their three wounded comrades and the two women in their middle. Ten mercenaries surrounded them and cut off their retreat toward the street. Nemon blocked the gate all by himself while the admiral stood on the top steps of the castle and watched the desperate battle with a dark frown. Vin shot Nemon first.
The rounds Vin used wouldn’t pass through a body so he didn’t have to worry about innocents as he fired shot after shot into the enemy. They fell easier than many he’d killed in battle. Vin’s armor absorbed return fire but most of their shots missed him as he kept running. Fear that his killing talents might horrify Emma nagged at him but didn’t stop him from taking out more of the mercenaries. Three of the men on the far side of the gate ran.
Vin let the cowards flee and quickly took out the last four mercenaries before he stopped and turning toward Ben. Now Emma’s possible opinion stayed Vin’s hand. “Surrender, Admiral.”
Emma screamed a warning at the same moment Vin heard him coming. Nemon slammed into him, carrying him to the ground.
Vin lost one of his guns in the fall and Nemon wrapped his hand around Vin’s other pistol. Even with his armor on, Nemon’s massive weight crushed Vin into the grass. The high grade armor had been designed to withstand high falls and even explosions. But it didn’t help him throw off three hundred pounds of muscle. He blocked Nemon’s fist from his unprotected head with his forearm, but his arm tingled with force of the blow.
Blood ran from Nemon’s side where Vin had shot him but it didn’t slow him down. He smashed his fist into Vin’s hand holding the pistol. Bones cracked and the pistol fell from Vin’s grip.
Someone shot Nemon in the shoulder, his blood showering on Vin. Nemon flinched, but he still brought his hands together to form a double fist. A mad gleeful expression distorted the man’s features as he swung his hands toward Vin.
Vin crossed his arm and caught the blow. But Nemon leaned into Vin’s block. He held the press but couldn’t raise the weight and pressure away from his body. The soldiers shouted at Nemon, but the mercenary ignored them. His dark eyes looked into Vin’s with hunger, a hunger to take the life before him. Vin’s arms quivered with the strain of holding the giant back. His broken hand throbbed in time with his pounding heart.
An awful grin, full of perfect teeth but as feral as a wild beast, spread across Nemon’s face. He flexed and called forth a reserve of strength. He grabbed Vin’s wrists, twisting and pulling his arms apart. The armor protected Vin’s wrists from breaking but as Nemon jerked Vin’s arms apart, something popped in his left shoulder. Another slug burrowed into Nemon’s body but he kept coming.
Emma screamed at the soldiers guarding her, ordering them to stop Nemon. One of the soldiers bravely closed in on Nemon, his gun raised. But the big mercenary released Vin’s arm and jabbed his fist in a lightning strike
against the man’s chest. Vin heard bones crack and the man’s weak cry as he fell into his comrades.
Nemon tore at the fastenings of Vin’s armored chest plate. Vin struck him with his right elbow, the shock to his broken hand causing him to almost pass out. A slug cut a furrow into Nemon’s brow and snapped his head back. He glared at the people surrounding them as blood ran down his face. Another bullet tore into the center of Nemon’s forehead. He swayed for a moment and then toppled forward.
Vin gritted his teeth against a scream as the large body pressed into his damaged shoulder. He tried to use his right arm to lever Nemon off of him but he couldn’t move so much weight with one arm. Then other hands were there, cursing and dragging Nemon away. Blood from the dead man dripped onto him, and then one of the soldiers lifting the body stepped on Vin’s smashed hand. Agony spread across his fingers, and the last of his battle adrenaline scattered with it. His body answered with unconsciousness.
* * * *
Emma broke from her mother’s encircling arms as they dragged the giant away from Vin. More soldiers poured into the courtyard, running around Vin and Nemon to surround Ben. Others stopped to help the wounded. Still more jogged around each side of the manor or entered the front doors. But all she cared about was getting to Vin.
It took four men to drag Nemon’s bloody body off of her marine. Emma dropped to her knees beside Vin, horrified at the amount of blood on his chest and face. His eyes closed, and it took her a moment to realize he’d passed out. When she saw the damage to his right hand, her head spun also. As a physician she knew it was a serious injury with bones sticking out through the skin in at least three places and blood pouring from the open fractures. As this amazing man’s lover, her heart skipped a beat as she imagined the pain he suffered.