by EJ Fisch
He received murmurs of agreement from everyone but the three men in Haphor. Zona remained silent, listening to the outburst Emeri’s words had drawn from his superiors.
“While you make a valid point, Director,” Jaroon growled, “I’m not sure if I completely understand why you’re so intent on incarcerating Ziva in the first place. Treat her like the bloodthirsty murderer she is and execute her now!”
“Sir, under normal circumstances you know we would release her and have a Cleaner assigned to her after the hearing at the end of the week. However, I don’t think we can consider any circumstances regarding Lieutenant Payvan as being ‘normal.’ As skilled as she is, it would be far too easy for her to fall off the radar, resulting in a vast amount of wasted time for all of us. Keeping her detained is the most logical way to prevent that from happening.”
Jaroon crossed his arms, his eyes dark in the shadow cast by his furrowed eyebrows. “Still, why bother keeping her alive at all? She’s clearly guilty, so why wait?”
Emeri had never been able to fathom how Njo could view his own step-daughter in such a harsh way, and Ziva had never elaborated on her complicated family background. He knew her real father had been killed by Sardons in the Fringe War and that she had run away from Haphor as a child, but nothing more. “You know the laws of due process, General. In the grace period before they are convicted and executed, a capital criminal has the right to petition associates for help in building a case that could prove their innocence. It’s only fair that we give Ziva the same chance, even if it’s while she’s rotting in that prison.”
“I know this looks bad, Emeri,” said the director from the Mairo office, “but are you sure you want to execute Payvan? She’s done a lot for this agency over the past eight years. What if she could somehow be proven innocent?”
“Then that information will be presented at her hearing,” Luko Zona reminded them, as calm and collected as ever.
“Regardless of whether she’s guilty or innocent, I’m not going to make any exceptions to the law, not even for Ziva,” Emeri said. “For now she’ll be given the death penalty, just like anyone else who has done what she’s accused of. Innocent people sometimes lose their lives, and that’s unfortunate.” His mind wandered briefly to the incident with Soren Tarbic two years earlier. “But it’s the price we pay for peace here, and everyone realizes that. You’ve all seen the crime rate statistics from the past few decades. An intelligent person isn’t going to commit a capital crime if they know they’ll be killed for it, and they’ll take care to steer clear of any situations in which they might be falsely implicated. If we were to give Ziva any special treatment, what kind of example would we be setting?”
“Why are we even discussing the possibility that she could be innocent?” Jaroon protested, his voice becoming louder and more abrasive as the conversation progressed. “You saw the evidence – we all saw the evidence! Fingerprints and DNA don’t lie, Director. As a high-ranking member of your precious spec ops division, she has the skills to back it up; if you ask me, that makes for an indestructible case against her.”
Emeri was growing weary of the Royal General’s personal opinions. He suddenly felt a small need to defend Ziva, at least a little, if for no other reason than to agitate Njo. “That doesn’t mean she isn’t entitled to her rights.”
“I agree with the General,” Brychon Zinck piped in. “If Payvan is as good as everyone makes her out to be, what’s to keep her from breaking out of the prison? By bringing her to Haphor, we’re presenting a danger to everyone in the city, including myself and General Jaroon. Think of the King!”
“We will take every precaution to make sure nothing like that happens,” Emeri reassured them. “I don’t think we’re dealing with any sort of psychotic break here. She hasn’t come completely unhinged.”
“You never know, Director,” one of the other regional directors said. “You know as well as I do that it isn’t unheard of for spec ops agents to snap and begin spree-killing. It wouldn’t be the first time it has happened.”
The discussion was getting out of hand. “This isn’t about—” Emeri stopped when his office door opened. He turned to find Diago Dasaro waiting just inside the doorway, his demeanor calm but his eyes frantic. Grateful for the interruption, Emeri looked back to the holograms around the table. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me for a moment.”
He stepped off the comm pad and moved toward Dasaro, who approached simultaneously. He noticed the captain was carrying a communicator, and his face was grim as if he had come bearing bad news. Perhaps Emeri would have preferred to continue his conference.
“This had better be good,” he muttered.
“You’re going to want to hear this,” Dasaro replied, handing him the communicator. “Payvan escaped.”
-16-
Checkpoint Fifteen
Tasmin Forest, Haphez
Over an hour passed before Ziva found herself within earshot of what remained of Checkpoint Fifteen. In fact, she was surprised anyone was still there. The fact that she had escaped was no doubt old news by now, and she wondered why these agents weren’t out combing the forest for her.
She crept closer to the checkpoint and took cover behind a large patch of brush, taking the time to spread a thin layer of black mud over her pale face that contrasted so starkly with the dark forest. It wouldn’t take too long for someone to catch up to her. Hoping to throw off any of her pursuers’ calculations regarding time and foot speed, she had made a point to start out traveling as fast as possible and in irregular patterns. Still, a decent tracker would be able to trace her movements over the wet ground fairly easily – she needed a new mode of transportation before they could do so.
There were more agents at the checkpoint than there had been when the aircar had passed over, giving Ziva the impression that reinforcements had been brought in to assist with the search. That was exactly the case, according to what she could hear of a conversation going on nearby. Similar camps were being set up within ten kilometers of the crash site and agents would soon be dispatched into the forest in an attempt to box her in.
Ziva was exhausted and soaked to the bone with sweat and rain, but she was relieved that her strategy seemed to have worked. She slipped behind a nearby tree and began to move around the perimeter of the camp, watching as portable tracking equipment and supply caches were set up in the clearing. Several groundcars and hoverbikes were parked unattended on the far side; that needed to be her destination.
A holoprojector table like those in HSP’s situation rooms and the one in her own living room was being set up under a cover to protect it from the weather. Once they got it operational they might be able to hunt her down via one of the infrared probes hovering in the Haphezian atmosphere, assuming there’d even been any in the area. Unless one of them had been pointed in exactly the right direction at exactly the right time, the chances were slim that they’d picked her up at the crash site. Even if HSP did manage to trace her to this place, she liked to think she’d be safely away by then.
Ziva made up her mind then and there that taking out any of these agents would draw far too much attention. Still, she knew walking up to one of the bikes and riding off on it wasn’t exactly subtle either. She would have to come up with an appropriate combination of the two.
“It was a stupid idea in the first place,” one agent was saying as he and a colleague carried a cargo container nearby. “I understand where they’re coming from, but they know better than to send a spec ops agent like Payvan off with such little security. Did they really expect things to end well?” He grunted as they set the container down.
The second agent nodded in agreement and the two of them began unloading equipment. “If it were up to me, she should have been shot the moment she was apprehended. Keeping her alive was just an invitation for her to escape again.”
Ziva took their remarks as compliments and continued moving. The process was slow, and several times she was forced to move away fro
m the camp in order to stay adequately concealed. Twenty long minutes later, she found herself within several strides of the group of cars and bikes. There were seven vehicles in all, and one particular bike on the outer edge beckoned to her. It would do nicely.
Ziva cautiously picked her way across a more open area, careful to avoid detection by a few nearby officers who had their backs turned. A large stack of empty storage containers hid her from view as she knelt down among the cars and began to formulate a plan.
None of the vehicles had their ignition keys in them, a smart move on the part of these agents. Finding any keys in the camp – all the while avoiding being caught – would be close to impossible. Hotwiring was always an option, but it would take time Ziva wasn’t sure she had. For the time being, however, it was the best choice she had. She began to fiddle with the control panel on the bike she had chosen.
Not ten seconds after she’d started, Ziva ducked down behind the machine to avoid being seen by an agent who had suddenly appeared on the edge of the camp. He was wearing a full riding suit and had a matching helmet tucked up under one arm. A key dangled from his other hand.
“I’ll check in when I get there,” he hollered back into the camp. He shook his head as if he were glad to be getting away and mounted the bike on the other side of the car beside Ziva’s.
She saw the opportunity and made her move. Staying low, she crept around the bike and car and came up behind the unsuspecting agent as he started his bike’s engine. She came within a meter of him while he leaned over and took up the helmet from where it had been balancing on the handlebars. With her footsteps drowned out by the hum of the engine, she leaped onto the seat behind him and hooked her elbow around his throat just as he was sliding the helmet over his head.
The young officer was too stunned to do anything other than flail his arms at her and claw at the helmet visor that had fallen down over his face. By the time he had mustered up any form of reaction, Ziva could already feel the sleeper hold taking effect. She tightened her grip, gradually cutting off the blood supply to his brain. Slowly the agent quit fighting and slumped back against her, unconscious.
She slid off the seat, moved the body back, then jumped onto the front with his limp form leaning against her back. Yanking the steering column around, she took the bike into a sharp turn, spraying mud over the vehicles around her with the repulsors. She steered the bike into the forest and away from the camp, keeping the officer’s body between herself and any agents who happened to look up at the departing vehicle. By the time anyone realized the man and his bike weren’t coming back, she would be long gone.
-17-
Abandoned Relay Station
Outskirts of Haphor, Haphez
Two hours later, Ziva stepped off the hoverbike outside an old relay station no longer in use. The building sat at the base of a tall comm tower; both structures were positioned on top of a hill that rose up between a small river and a road connecting Haphor to some outlying towns. The route was seldom used anymore due to the more powerful relay stations that had been built further away from the city.
Thick foliage concealed the area well, but from where she stood now Ziva had a decent view of the road below and could also see several different air traffic lanes from a distance. She looked down the other side of the hill to the little river. It rushed along at the bottom of a crevice it had worn over the years, with steep banks rising up on either side. The edges of the bed were lined with boulders and pebbles of all sizes that had been washed smooth by the water that rushed faithfully toward Haphor and the Tranyi River. It would provide the perfect means of escape if the need arose.
Ziva now donned the riding suit the young agent had been wearing. It fit well, though it was a bit baggy. That was fine, she concluded, as it would allow her to remain androgynous and faceless in just about any setting. The suit was dark gray in color and had a fiber reinforcement chest plate of a slightly lighter shade. It was moderately comfortable, and the matching helmet, gloves, and Ziva’s own rugged boots made up the rest of the ensemble.
As for the unconscious agent who had accompanied her on part of her journey, nobody would be hearing from him for a while. After leaving the camp site, they had ridden deeper into the forest to the north, successfully escaping HSP’s perimeter before it had risen to full strength. Ziva had stopped briefly to disable her stolen communicator’s locator chip and the bike’s nav computer, and at that point had to hit the helpless officer over the head to keep him from waking up. They’d continued on for another fifty kilometers or so until they reached yet another old forest road, which were prevalent in the area. Here, Ziva had relieved the agent of his suit, weapons, and supply belt before leaving him lying in the bushes a good distance from the road. She’d taken off to the west from there, carefully working her way back toward Haphor until she’d discovered the relay station.
Ziva walked the bike up to the side of the little building and left it there, taking the time to cover it partially with large fronds from a nearby bush. She stood at the front door for a moment, studying it, tunneling into it with her mind. The lock was strong, though not nearly as sophisticated as some she had seen recently. She closed her eyes and reached into the lock with her thoughts just as she might with any tangible tool she normally used. The headache set in almost immediately and she winced, struggling to focus. The locking mechanism rattled inside the door for a moment before the bolt fell back into position.
She sighed and massaged her temples. With as little as she exercised her Nostia, it was easy to forget how badly it was failing. Under any other circumstances, she’d be content to rely solely on her physical skills and let her special abilities remain dormant. But right now, she needed any edge she could get, and it was disheartening to realize she couldn’t count on the one thing that had always given her that edge. She needed to rest, to focus. Focus and concentration seemed to be the key to eking out what little Nostia she had left.
Frustrated, Ziva drew her pistol and shielded her face, then threw the butt of the weapon against the nearest window. The impact sent a fresh bout of pain shooting up into her shoulder, and she took a moment to test its mobility before clearing away some of the broken glass and crawling inside.
Lighting panels activated via a motion detector when Ziva entered the shack, but they were old and flickering, leaving the light dim at best. Judging by the lack of severe dust build-up inside, it hadn’t been long since someone had been there. Nearly everything had been cleared out, with the exception of the original control panels. There were three workstations to her left with terminals that had been shut down indefinitely. Thick cables ran from the dead computers up the wall and through the ceiling, presumably connecting somehow to the large tower outside.
The area to her right was even more vacant. The floor was wide open as if a sofa or some other large piece of furniture had once been positioned there. An empty gun rack hung on the wall beside a metal cabinet whose doors stood open to reveal unoccupied shelves. Aside from those two items, the only thing that remained was an old fashioned sink, which – she wandered over and twisted the handle – yes, still worked. Ziva let the cold water trickle over her fingers then splashed a little over her face.
She wiped away the excess water with a sleeve and surveyed her surroundings again. First things first – the automatic lights would be a problem once it got dark. She went to the control panel and used the utility knife from the stolen supply belt to pry the cover off. She took a moment to examine the mass of wires within before choosing a select few to cut. The lights flickered a final time before shutting off, casting the interior of the station in shadows. The darkness would be unfortunate, but Ziva didn’t plan on staying long and anything was better than having the place lit up like a beacon for all to see once night fell.
The lack of sleep the night before and the long trek that day were beginning to take their toll. Thoroughly exhausted, Ziva leaned against the wall and undid the clasps on the riding jacket, grimacing when
her hand brushed over a sore spot on her side that had begun plaguing her not long after the prison transport had crashed. She peeled her sweat-soaked shirt back and examined the area in the waning light; a bruise roughly the size of her fist had formed at the base of her rib cage, and a bit of careful probing told her she’d probably fractured a rib. Her stolen supply belt held a small storage pouch, spare plasma cell, grappling cable, stun baton, and the hoverbike’s key. No caura gel or painkillers. “Sheyss,” she sighed.
Keeping her back flat against the wall, Ziva sank slowly to the floor. She studied the light shining in from outside and recovered the agent’s communicator from the utility belt. She examined the locator chip again, ensuring that it had indeed been destroyed, then set a timer for a few hours. Then, tilting her head back, she allowed her eyes to shut.
-18-
HSP Headquarters
Noro, Haphez
Zinni was just passing the doorway to the special operations situation room when a massive hand reached out of nowhere and threw her against the wall. She dropped the data pad she was holding and whirled, finding herself caught under the crushing gaze of Diago Dasaro.
He stepped out of the situation room, keeping his meaty hand clamped over her shoulder with his thumb digging harshly up under her collar bone. The man was huge, standing taller than Ziva or Skeet by several centimeters, and his shoulders were wide enough to account for two of Zinni. The arm that held her was like the trunk of a tree, and it didn’t budge when she took hold of it hoping to relieve the pressure on her shoulder.