“Now, according to the intel we gathered, there is an area of the base that the Shadow Coalition claimed. Before them, it had been empty. And someone bought it from the Centau. The purpose on the deed says for a capitalistic venture. Sounds like they could put in a pool and make it a resort. Or, I don’t know an arcade.”
“Or a place to hide children,” Holly muttered.
“Yes but for what reason?” Shiro answered quietly.
Holly glanced at him and their gazes connected. It had been days since they’d had eye contact. Has it really been that long? she wondered. Suddenly the discomfort she’d been experiencing about him faded and in its place came the comforting sense that they were working as a team again. And they were good at it.
“We intend to found out, don’t we,” Voss said, cutting through the moment.
“More than find out,” Odeon said.
“Bust some heads at the same time,” Charly said.
“You guys,” Darius said. “That was a beautiful team moment. Someone take a picture and then we can hang it up here at the Bird’s Nest. Enshrine it. Maybe decorate it with a plaque and some floral arrangements.”
Despite herself, Holly chuckled. The spell was broken, the others laughed, and the fears and doubts about the nature of the job fled. It helped that the base was no longer a looming mystery. It was a base—with homes, stores, and families. Kids ran between the adults who were strolling through the market, shopping. They could do this. Trip waited for them in the landing bay. All they had to do was grab Charm and get the fuck out.
“Where to next, Darius?” Holly asked.
“Soon you’ll come to an elevator. Get in, and go up to the Level 017. That’s the level the SC has blocked out.”
“Any idea what they’ve got up there?”
They passed a busker singing and playing a violin. A crowd was gathered around him. The crew kept moving, only pausing for a moment to take in the sight.
Soon they were at the elevator Darius had indicated. Charly hit the button and the team waited.
“No. I mean, I think it’s going to be rooms. Maybe some warehouse space? It’s hard to tell. The plans indicated that it’s warehouse, but the Centau have never seemed serious about enforcing zoning regulations.” He laughed at that.
Trip’s voice came in. “They are equal parts both strictly organized and free market.”
Darius laughed louder. “Trip, you always make me laugh.” Over the comms the two of them began to bicker about the way the Centau ran the central government. The rest of the team exchanged long-suffering looks, then boarded the elevator when it opened up.
They rode in silence. The air was heavy with their anticipation, and soon the doors slid open and the team exited into a corridor strangely barren compared to what they had just left.
THIRTY-FOUR
HOLLY sighed, the nervousness returning. Level 017 wasn’t quite so friendly. “What next Darius?”
They stood there in a little knot of bodies in a long corridor that stretched out in either direction, unsure about where to go.
“OK,” Darius said. “Now, go look around. The plans give me no more information. Just that this is the floor the SC has taken.”
“Should we split up?” Voss suggested.
Normally Holly would have said yes, but the fact that the suggestion came from Voss made her want to automatically reject the idea. Plus Holly really didn’t want to end up with their team split up between two locations. That could prove disastrous. If one team found Charm, then they would still have to wait to meet back up at the ship before leaving.
“We’re not splitting up,” Holly said. The corridor was as wide as the one they’d entered into, but instead of shops and tents, there were doors. “We’ll go down the corridor opening doors. Check them, see if they lead anywhere.”
“Excuse me a minute, Holly, what is it we’re looking for precisely?”
“Charm, the little girl who was taken. She’s Dru—er, Yasoan. Sorry Odeon. Nasty habit,” Holly admitted.
“And we think she’ll just be behind say, door number one? Possibly two? Or how about door ninety-nine?”
“What are you saying, Voss, that you you don’t like the idea of just opening doors at random to find what we’re looking for?”
“That’s right. I think we’ll just wander about till we bump into someone who knows that we shouldn’t be here, and then we’ll never find her.”
“Hang on,” Darius said. “I found another file. Rather, my filter did. It’s old though. It shows the floor as being divided between warehouse space for the hydrantium and the rest of it being Shadow Coalition quarters. It looks like the inner ring of the corridor is storage. And the outer doors lead to the quarters.”
“So we’ll try the doors on the outer ring,” Shiro said, sounding pleased with having narrowed it down.
“Right. Let’s start then.” They moved down the empty corridor and started to check the first door. Now that they were on the private floors of the base, every door had a lock. So Voss did her part and pulled the Skelty Key out of the pack she wore on her waist.
“Oh wait, hang on, guys,” Darius said over the comms.
Voss paused in placing the key on scanner lock. “What?”
“What?” Holly asked at the same time as Voss. She ignored it.
“Sorry, but I just found something else in the file indicating that blocks A and B of the living quarters area is reserved for the foot soldiers of the SC. Block D is for the big wigs. And Block C is for the miners.”
“They’re employing their own miners?” Holly repeated. “Trip, you know anything about that?”
Trip’s voice came in on the comm. “I know nothing about the Shadow Coalition. They’re scum. I know that. And I know that miners tend to be small. For Centau, the miners are young pilots because it saves fuel and the ships are easier to pilot than other ships. So it doesn’t require a lot of skill, basically hitting some buttons.”
“Trip, are you saying that the pilots could be children?” Holly asked, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.
“In your years, no. The equivalent age of the Centau pilots would be in their twenties or thirties.”
“So they could be like nine-year-olds, possible a year or two younger, and certainly older?”
“It’s possible, yes,” Trip said.
“Thanks Trip. Darius, you said Block C is for the miners?”
“That’s right, Block C.”
“Steer us to Block C,” Holly ordered him.
He complied and soon they found the door that, when opened, would lead to the quarters for the miners.
“Voss,” Holly said, and indicated the scanner lock that she wanted Voss to open.
Voss pulled the Skelty Key out again, and began to work on the lock.
“Oh, and guys?” Darius said.
“What?” Odeon, Charly, and Holly all said it at the same time, exasperated with Darius’s constant interruptions. At this rate they’d never find anyone. They’d die of old age, meandering through the halls of the base.
“Be careful,” Darius said, then chuckled.
Charly cussed him out, and Odeon laughed. Voss kept working and soon the door was opened using the lock-breaking Skelty Key. The team stepped to the side of the door as it opened and then Holly peered around the corner. The narrow hallway was empty, and she led the way into it, with the crew following close behind her. She still hadn’t drawn the Equalizer, and hoped that she wouldn’t need to.
“So what, we’re just going to open a door and hope it’s not a bunch of adult Shadow Coalition members that we’ll have to fight?” Voss whispered.
Holly nodded, “Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” It wasn’t what she’d been intending, in fact, she was winging it. The lack of information going into the job had been disheartening, and she and Darius had only laid out a rough idea of how they were going to do it. With the sparse details it was the best they could do. “Get that one, please, Voss.” Holly indicated a lock on a doo
r.
As Voss set the key up to break the lock, Holly waited beside her, thinking how great it would be if Charm were behind the first door they tried. She knew the odds were slim. But still, she hoped.
The lock clicked and the door slid open. Voss moved to the side, bumping into Charly and Odeon as she did. Shiro stood behind Holly as she peered around the corner.
The room was long and dark. With the light from the hall spilling across the floor, Holly saw rows of bunk beds, and beneath the beds, the small bodies of what appeared to be children, sleeping.
Holly held back a gasp, and the sudden rush of blood, hot like lava, looking for an outlet. So it was true—her hunch after hearing from Trip about the benefits of using children on the ships. Her hunch was right. The Shadow Coalition was using them for labor. She wanted to find whoever was responsible and make them pay.
She began to move into the room, to look for Charm, to save the kids, there were a lot of reasons to go dashing in. But Shiro pulled her back.
“Ms. Drake, where are you going?” he asked. “Let’s figure this out first, perhaps, lass?”
“Shiro, what else should I do? I need to find Charm.” She turned and looked at him.
“I agree. But yet, I think subtly is key, here. We can’t haul all those kids back. We can’t stroll through the base with all the children the Shadow Coalition has taken, secretly, and get away. Or,” he paused, his dark eyes intense as he stared down at her, “Do you think we can do that?”
She realized she was hanging tightly to one of her fingers and massaging it. Holding herself in, holding back the frustration. Years of letting someone else tell her what to do, what to think, what to be. Right then, she wanted to tell Shiro that he wasn’t her boss or her husband. She didn’t have to listen to him.
But she hesitated and considered what he was saying. And the bastard was right. Goddamn him. “We’ll get Charm first. And then we’ll get the kids.”
“Today?” He whispered leaning toward her.
“No. We’ll come back for them. Right now we need to just grab the girl and get out of here before the SC figures out we’re here and comes after us.”
“I agree with this plan, Ms. Drake.”
“So one of us needs to go in there to see if Charm is inside.”
“I’ll let you do that. We’ll cover your back.”
“Thanks,” Holly said, drily. “Oh and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about what happened on Joppa.”
He smiled at her. “Don’t say that, Ms. Drake. Let’s discuss it later.”
The others on the other side of the door had been watching Shiro and Holly conspiring, and now, as Holly went back around the corner, Shiro went to join them and tell them what was happening.
The children slept as Holly entered the room on tiptoe and walked through it, passing by each sleeping child, searching for a pale violet face. There were small footlockers next to the beds and one at the foot of each bunkbed. The sleeping arrangements seemed to be according to age, with the youngest children put in the rear of the room, where there were doors into what looked like a bathroom and shower. The beds were large, like they were intended for adults and not children. Holly finished combing the room, a knotted rope of anxiety in her gut as she thought about all the parents missing their children, and how scared the kids must be.
Charm wasn’t in the room. They would try the next. As Holly retraced her steps, heading for the doors, a child sat up in bed, crying. Holly was almost to the door, she wanted to run, but thought that would seem odd to the child. So she kept her pace until the child said, “Mommy is that you.”
Holly froze.
If she answered, the sound might disturb the other children. Then she would have an entire slew of kids crying and looking for their mothers. But the child’s voice. The tears. The realization that the kid had been taken from its parents and forced to work. It all mounted a siege against her willpower to just keep running. She should run. Shiro poked his head around the corner and motioned for her to hurry up.
It was what she should have done. But she found herself beside the crying child. It was a little boy. Probably eight or nine.
“Hey,” Holly said. “No tears.”
The tears stopped. The boy rubbed his eyes and stared at her.
“I’m not your mom. I’m sorry. But listen,” she whispered. “I have to leave. But I’m going to come back. And I’ll take you back to your mom or dad.”
He nodded and made a soft sound like a hiccough.
“You have to promise me, though, that you won’t tell anyone you saw me or that I said I’ll be coming back to save you from this.”
By the light of the hallway, she saw new tears forming in his eyes.
“I know. It sucks. But you need to brave right now. And I will be back for you. What’s your name?”
“Jasper,” he whispered.
“Jasper. I’ll come back for you. I’m Holly. Holly Drake. Remember that, when you feel scared or alone. I’m coming back for you.”
“I will,” he said.
She rose and went back to the door. She stood there waving at the boy as the door shut. The sound of it closing was so final. She wouldn’t think about how it was to be on the other side of that door, a mere child, being left behind.
“Terrible call, Drake,” Voss told her.
“The very fact that you don’t like it, tells me it was the right call,” Holly said as they moved to the next door. “We could probably speed this up if we all looked.”
So Voss opened three more doors. Some of the rooms were empty, as though the kids worked on shifts. Day for some. Night for others.
Soon Holly realized that perhaps Charm wasn’t even there—perhaps she was out in a ship. That left her feeling cold. She didn’t want it to be so.
Odeon came running out of one of the rooms. “Holly, I think I found her. Come with me.” Holly had been waiting beside Voss as she worked on a lock. She followed Odeon into the room where he’d found who he believed was Charm.
The two of them crept to the bed where a child slept. Violet skin. The same nose Holly recalled from her few encounters with Charm. She looked small and naive, sleeping in a bed lost amidst the stolen children of the base.
“This is her. You wake her up.” Holly stepped back to allow Odeon to do it, hoping that the familiar face of a Druiviin would be more comforting than the color and shape of a human.
At the prodding from Odeon, the young girl stirred and blinked till her eyes remained open. “Father?” The girl said.
“No,” Odeon answered, then he spoke to her softly in Yasoan. Her eyes widened in response and she immediately slid out of the bottom bunk. She grabbed a change of clothes out of the footlocker beside the bed, then joined Odeon as he crept out of the room. Holly followed behind them. In the hallway, Voss had gathered Shiro and Charly from the other rooms and they were waiting for Holly and Odeon. The door shut behind them, and the crew began to speak in softer voices.
“This is working out too easy, guys, is anyone else worried about that?” Charly glanced nervously up and down the hallway.
“We’ve got the child, now please let’s get back to the ship,” Shiro said.
“You’re not going to get the others?” Charm asked Holly.
“Charm,” Holly said, getting on Charm’s level and giving her a quick embrace. “I want to, trust me. But I made a promise to Tyro and Aetion that I would find you. I can’t take all the kids. I didn’t know how many there would be. But I’m making a promise to you, now, that I’ll come back for the others.”
“Let’s go Drake, we don’t have time for this. You can have your reunion on the ship,” Voss said.
“Lead the way,” Holly said, suppressing the urge to put Voss in her place. “Charly, you take the front. Shiro pull up the rear. Odeon and Voss, you keep in the middle with the girl.”
Now that they had the child, Holly wouldn’t be taking any more risks. She pulled t
he Equalizer out and kept the barrel pointed at the floor as she followed Charly back down the corridor and out into the main corridor.
***
As the crew made their way back to the elevator, a door from the inside of the corridor opened and four or five Shadow Coalition people came out, one of them apparently a higher rank. A human male, dressed in a black suit, a bolo tie, and a black Panama hat. He was talking to a female Constie as though he were giving her a series of important instructions.
Holly and her team came face to face with the group of Shadow Coalition people.
The SC group stared at Holly’s crew, shock written all over their faces. The higher ranking man stopped whatever he was saying and just looked at Holly. Their gazes went to Odeon, then to Charm. And then there was a mad shuffle as the SC thugs pulled out their knifes and the man in the bolo tie began to laugh. An indulgent, offensive laugh. Like he found what was happening to be impossibly hilarious.
“What is this, a sad attempt at a rescue?” His arms were outspread like he wasn’t threatened by Holly’s motley group. “Holly Drake, I presume?”
She pointed her gun at his face and closed one eye. I should do it. But then she’d never know who he really was. And she would have to live with killing an unarmed man. “Who wants to know?”
“Don’t you remember me? We’ve met. On Po.”
“That was you?”
“I was dressed for warehouse work. What can I say? I clean up nice, though, don’t I?”
He was cheeky. A smart ass. Holly instantly didn’t like him.
“Why are you using children for labor?” Holly asked. “I should kill you right now. And take all the kids with me.”
“You have a ship big enough to take all of them? Let me guess. You don’t.”
“I’d steal a tanker. I’m sure my pilot could handle it.”
“Steal a tanker. From the Centau? Brilliant idea. They would love that. Let me guess, your pilot is a Centau. Centau don’t steal from other Centau.”
He was probably right. But Holly wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of telling him that.
“Besides,” he continued, “You kill me, what’s to stop the other Hands from going after you? You kill one, the others come for you. You kill them too? The Heart will come after you. And the Heart isn’t as nice as the Hands.”
Hands of the Colossus Page 21