by EJ Fisch
First things first – he needed to get matters cleared up with Skeet while he was still off Dasaro’s radar. Looking in the general direction the two agents had gone, Aroska caught sight of Zinni standing in one of the bullpens on the far side of the squad floor. She was leaning down over her workstation but her head was up and she was looking directly at him. She turned away when she realized she had been spotted. Skeet was nowhere in sight.
The thought of coming across as such a cold-blooded traitor tied a sickening knot in Aroska’s stomach as he made his way toward the intelligence officer. Though he’d only spent a few days working with Ziva’s squad, he’d come to trust them and rely on them to the point that he thought he could call them friends. The idea of deceiving them after they had so readily accepted him as one of their own two months earlier drove him insane. He needed to find Skeet and make amends, and not just for the current situation.
Zinni was watching him again as he neared. She glanced around, and when she saw that his presence didn’t seem to be drawing any attention, she approached. Without a word, she took him by the arm and led him off the squad floor into the wide bridge-like corridor that connected the spec ops wing and the field ops wing. Her grip was firm; despite her size, she possessed a measure of strength that didn’t fail to impress Aroska. They stopped in a secluded area and she gazed up at him, hands on her hips and eyebrows knit.
“I don’t know what you think you’re trying to accomplish here,” she said.
“Zinni, please trust me. This isn’t what it looks like.”
“I certainly hope not.” Her sparkling cerulean eyes had turned to ice as she glared at him. “And I’m sorry but I don’t think I can trust you right now.”
Aroska bent down closer to eye level. “You’re going to have to!” he snapped, instantly reminding himself to remain calm. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Look, there’s a lot you don’t know and a lot I can’t tell you, but I promise you’ll hear all of it in due time. Right now I really need to talk to Skeet.”
He felt her tense muscles relax a bit and her face softened. She sighed and shook her head, sucking on her bottom lip. “You make it sound like a matter of life and death.”
“It could turn into one if we don’t all get on the same page right now.” Perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but Aroska could picture things heading downhill fast if they remained at odds.
“Do you really think you can just walk back in here and expect us all to cooperate after what you did?”
“Would it help at all if I said I was sorry?”
Zinni pushed his hands away from her shoulders and turned in a slow circle, muttering under her breath. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Aroska and anyone who happened to be walking by. He could tell she was curious as to what he was hiding, but considering what a little fireball Zinni was, he doubted she would tolerate his presence in the building for another minute if he didn’t start talking.
“Fine,” she finally muttered. “I’ll take you to Skeet, but I can’t guarantee he’s going to want to listen to you.”
The two of them turned back down the hallway. “He’ll listen,” Aroska said. “Once he hears what I have to say, he’ll be all ears.”
-34-
HSP Headquarters
Noro, Haphez
Dasaro watched Tarbic exit the office, his mind focused more on Payvan than anything else. The man was a good agent – his flawless service record proved that much. It was apparent that he’d had his share of problems during the last several weeks, but it didn’t bother Dasaro enough to make him question Aroska’s ability to produce results. Still, there was something about all of this that made him feel uneasy, almost as if the lieutenant were hiding something. There had been an odd scent in his house, something he’d been unable to pinpoint due to the govino smoke and stench of alcohol. He knew it was probably nothing, but he also knew he’d sleep better that night if he took the time to look into it.
“Diago?” Nejdra said, cutting into the silence. She stepped around in front of him, hands clasped behind her back. “Are we all set?”
“His personal comms have been checked?”
It was Kyron Hoxie who answered. “We’ve looked over both his mobile communicator and his home comm system. There was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, there was hardly anything at all. Other than several attempted transmissions from the older brother and a couple of routine collection calls, he’s had virtually no communication with anyone for at least three weeks.”
“Interesting,” Dasaro said, shifting the whole of his attention to the other two captains after he lost sight of Aroska in the crowd of agents and workstations. “Do we have any probes available for zone two of sector six?”
“Residential?” Nejdra asked, sliding into the chair at her own desk and quickly manipulating her computer. The infrared image on the holographic screen blurred briefly then spun, finally settling on a section of the city approximately ten by ten blocks. “Got it,” she said.
“Let’s see Tarbic’s house.”
Hoxie raised an eyebrow. “Any specific reason?”
Dasaro shook his head, eyes glued to the terminal as Nejdra entered the correct coordinates. “Just curious,” he replied.
The image settled on one of the houses near the center of the neighborhood. The walls of the building were indicated by a thin orange line. Heat signatures from cars and passersby moved to and fro outside, standing out against the dark gray background.
The house was empty.
“The probe is almost out of range,” Nejdra said. “I’m about to lose the feed.”
“That’s all I needed,” Dasaro said. He was satisfied for the moment, though he hadn’t achieved nearly the peace of mind he’d been hoping for. “Thank you.”
-35-
Market District
Noro, Haphez
Reciting the numbers to herself as she went, Ziva stopped in a shadowy alley and programmed the code for the communicator she had given Aroska into the one she’d just purchased. It wasn’t time to contact him yet; it had barely been an hour since he’d left for HSP and the chances that Dasaro was still nearby were high. Being kept out of the loop – no, intentionally excluding herself from the loop – was almost more than she could stand. It was one thing to be trapped on the planet, giving Dasaro all the more time to revise his strategies and close in on her. However, being both trapped and blind was close to terrifying. Worse yet, she had no way of knowing whether Aroska – her surrogate set of eyes – was even going to see anything useful.
She had opted to leave the house, at least for the majority of the day, after being stricken with the fear that she shouldn’t be trusting Aroska. She couldn’t shake the memory of what had happened on the landing pad on Sardonis after she had risked her own life to rescue him from Dakiti before the Grand Army attacked the hostile Sardon facility. Not only had she gotten him out successfully, but she had gone on to reveal her Nosti abilities in order to save him again. What had he done? He’d turned around and arrested her – after shooting out her knee – per Emeri Arion’s orders. Of course everything had been sorted out, but sometimes she wondered why she even bothered. If all she ever received in return for her hard work and stress was betrayal, it wasn’t worth it.
Ziva sighed. Aroska’s problem wasn’t necessarily that he was a backstabbing bastard. Rather, it was that he seemed to have a problem doing anything that defied orders. She doubted he would turn her in just for the sake of turning her in. If he confessed to Dasaro that he’d been in contact with her, she guessed it would be because he truly believed he was doing the right thing by helping bring down a murderer. No, Ziva thought, wincing. There she was again, succumbing to the lie and allowing herself to believe she was what everyone claimed she was.
Aroska hadn’t given her the impression that he believed she was guilty – in fact, he hadn’t acted like he cared at all. In that sense there was no way to predict what he was going to do. She had packed up her few
belongings and helped herself to Aroska’s small weapons cache, making sure to dispose of the borrowed clothes and wipe down every surface she’d touched when she had finished. Her plan was to spend the afternoon with one eye on Aroska’s house and one eye on the street. If all remained quiet she would risk a transmission by early evening, and if that went well she would return to the house.
It was midday now and the streets were crowded with shoppers, children, and tourists from some of the neighboring Fringe worlds. The clouds from the past two days had also disappeared, allowing the sun to beat down on the damp earth uncontested. Ziva was sweating profusely in the riding suit and flipped the helmet visor up for a moment, drinking in the only-slightly-less stuffy air. She wondered if the agent from the forest checkpoint had been found yet. If that were the case, she imagined she should ditch the suit. With Aroska’s viewscreen down and no other source of information as of yet, it was impossible to tell. Still, a generic gray riding suit, no matter who it had belonged to, would probably be less conspicuous than her own clothes that could be seen in every mugshot planetwide. Taking one last breath of fresh air, Ziva closed the visor again.
She stepped back out into the street, surveying the immediate area for HSP foot patrols. Seeing none, she veered left and began weaving in and out of the crowd, keeping her head down and her eyes open. The shade of the abandoned house where her stolen bike was stashed sounded inviting at the moment, not to mention it would be a quiet place where she could observe Aroska’s house. The thought struck her funny. The things I look forward to while on the run.
Aroska’s house was another four blocks to the west. Ziva picked up her pace a bit, free to do so as the shops gradually turned into apartments and homes and the throngs of people began to thin out. She glanced out into the street as she approached an intersection, searching for a gap in traffic.
Movement on the walkway caught her attention and she shifted her focus back to what was in front of her. She quickly sidestepped, but it was too late – her shoulder collided with that of a blue and gray-clad HSP agent who had just come around the corner with his partner. The two of them looked nearly as startled as Ziva was, and there was a brief hesitation where the three of them locked eyes, though hers were obscured behind the visor.
“Excuse me,” said the officer who had bumped into her.
Blood roiling, Ziva skirted around them and continued on, narrowly avoiding a passing groundcar in her haste to cross the street. She jogged on to the opposite side, slowing to a stiff walk that felt so uncomfortable she might as well have kept running. Now she was glad to be hidden within the riding suit; the helmet helped contain the sound of her panting and concealed her widened eyes. She walked for a full block without stopping, muttering under her breath in an attempt to calm herself. The street ended in a T-intersection, with Aroska’s house several more blocks to the left. She glanced in the direction from which she had come, checking for traffic, and caught sight of the two HSP Blues following at a distance. Both had their eyes on her and one of them, the one she had collided with, was speaking into his communicator.
A fresh bout of fire shot through Ziva’s nerves and she pivoted, rushing to the right instead. As soon as she was out of the agents’ line of sight she took off at a dead run, looking wildly about for somewhere to hide. The area was almost strictly residential now, which accounted for fewer crowds to blend in to and fewer alleys and dark places where she could disappear. She also realized running would only make the officers more suspicious than they otherwise might be, so once again she slowed to a fast walk, wondering how far behind they were. Certainly they had no idea who they were dealing with, but she dreaded the thought of giving them any opportunities to find out.
Glancing quickly at any reflective surface she passed, Ziva finally caught sight of the familiar blue and gray uniforms approaching. She was a good sixty meters ahead, but the street was long and straight and offered little to no cover. She pondered the option of simply facing them and taking them out quietly. Either choice – killing them or merely incapacitating them – would no doubt result in a canvassing of the entire neighborhood by HSP, putting both her and Aroska in jeopardy. Again sickened by the idea of having no choice but to run from the problem, Ziva ducked into the first alley she came to.
The space was narrow, with tall apartment buildings rising up on either side. Broken glass and other trash carpeted the ground, crunching and rattling under her boots. She moved on light feet, eyes on a smaller passage that branched off from the one in which she now stood. She pulled up short when she reached it. A dead end. A drunken homeless man lay passed out on a bed of rags he had created against the far wall, the liquor bottle still in his grasp. Mind and heart both racing, Ziva slipped back out and continued deeper into the heart of the apartment complex. She could hear the voices of the two agents out on the street as they drew nearer.
The main vein of the alley made a sharp ninety-degree turn ahead and she made a beeline for it, imagining a maintenance ladder or some such means of escape beyond. Her heart skipped a beat when all she found was a solid wall adorned with various city-operated control panels. Ripping the helmet off, she looked wildly about for any alternate route. With a little work, she could climb the pipes and cables lining the wall, but once her pursuers knew she was on the roof, she’d be fair game to any air patrols that happened to be nearby. It seemed leaving the alley was no longer an option either – she could now hear footsteps approaching.
Replacing the helmet, Ziva drew the pistol she had taken from Aroska’s house and held it at the ready. She kept her ears focused on the alley and her eyes on the wall, where she could see the shadows of the two agents as they moved closer. They were coming as silently as possible over the litter-covered ground, neither chatting casually nor relaying information via communicator. If they were coming into the alley alone they more than likely hadn’t called for back-up. As far as Ziva could tell, she still had the upper hand in the situation. From the shapes of their shadows, she could see that they had not drawn their weapons either. She hated having to attack two virtually innocent people, but she saw no other way out.
Ziva’s muscles tensed, her finger closed around the trigger and she inhaled all at the exact moment one of their communicators crackled to life. She froze, as did the two officers. One of them cursed and the other responded with a chuckle and a snide comment. “Go ahead, Central,” said the first, replying to the transmission.
The dispatcher began rattling off instructions and numbers, and Ziva caught the phrase “assault in progress” toward the end of the string. If she’d heard the address correctly, this call would take them back to the area where she had purchased the communicator. She lowered her pistol but didn’t loosen her grip.
“Copy that,” the agent said. “On our way.”
With that they were gone, leaving everything silent except for the hum of passing traffic. Ziva stood there in the alley for another several minutes, back flat against the wall, giving her racing heart time to settle. She wasn’t sure why all of this was getting her so worked up. Maybe it was the fact that those who would normally be backing her up were now against her. There were still the select few who were on her side, though they were severely outnumbered. Realistically, this was like any other mission. The only difference was that the enemy was her own people.
Feeling as calm as she guessed she would ever be, Ziva slid the pistol back into her pants and smoothed the jacket over it. Sighing, she established a firm grip on a thick pipe that ran up the wall and shinnied upward. Digging her toes into the wall, she heaved herself over the edge of the roof and rolled to her feet. Baking in the damp heat, Ziva began walking.
-36-
HSP Headquarters
Noro, Haphez
Skeet almost stormed away again when he noticed Aroska approaching, but he hesitated when he realized Zinni was with him. He gripped the railing that surrounded the vacant landing pad on which he stood and continued staring out over the cityscape.
>
“Skeet,” Zinni said quietly, inserting herself into the space between him and Tarbic.
He sent a fiery glare in Aroska’s direction. “You’d better have a good reason for being up here,” he muttered before shifting the glare toward Zinni.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Aroska said. “I’ve got something important to tell you both – a couple of things, actually.”
“You shot Ziva, betrayed her right after she saved your ass. Now you’re here to help Dasaro catch her. Why should we listen to you?”
“Listen, Skeet!” Tarbic snapped. “I don’t need this sheyss from you. I’m just trying to do the right thing here.”
“If this is your definition of the ‘right thing’—”
“Skeet!” Zinni exclaimed, crossing her arms.
“First of all I want to apologize to you both for selling Ziva out on Sardonis,” Aroska said before anyone could speak further. “Violation of protocol or not, she had just put her life on the line to save not only me but Tate and Jole as well. Without her, the mission would have fallen apart – hell, it never would have even existed. I thought I was doing the right thing by taking her into custody, but it didn’t take me long to realize I was wrong.” He hesitated a moment. “I’m the one responsible for convincing the director to drop the charges. Nobody’s supposed to know.”
“Have you told her all of this?” Zinni asked.
“Of course.”