by EJ Fisch
Aroska reached the floor and approached her slowly, feeling awkward just lurking there in the dark. Despite the mismatched parts, the rifle was shaping up nicely. He stood there watching her work for a moment, fascinated that those hands could cause so much destruction but still had the delicate touch required for creation and building.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring when she let out an exasperated sigh and set the torch down. “Can I help you?” she demanded, flipping the goggles up.
He only shrugged. “You’ve been quiet.”
“And you talk too much.”
Aroska slid his hands into his pockets and took a couple of steps closer. Ziva watched him for another second before pulling the goggles back down over her eyes and resuming her work. She said nothing further, but what more was there to say? He could tell she was in pain; he’d caught a glimpse of her bruised ribs as she’d administered caura treatment during their journey and she still sported a gash on her forehead from her fall into the riverbed. Aroska had also detected a slight limp, but so far she hadn’t voiced any discomfort and he hadn’t asked about it. There was something else to it, an ache that went beyond the physical sense. Her mouth formed a straight line and she looked paler than normal there in the dark.
He stood there for another minute before heaving a sigh and removing his jacket. Despite being a former grease pit, the floor of the room was relatively clean so he balled up the jacket to form a crude pillow and lowered himself down. Lying flat on his back, the side of the workbench blocked out most of the flickering light from the blowtorch.
The sparks stopped flying for a moment. “What are you doing?” Ziva growled.
“I’m being a gentleman and letting the lady have the sofa.”
The soldering continued. “Aroska Tarbic, a gentleman.” She snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
Aroska fell silent, her words striking him in a way he hadn’t expected. She was right, of course. He couldn’t recall more than a few courteous things he’d done since they’d met. After all, he’d wanted her head on a platter for the majority of the Dakiti mission. There was still a part of him that would never be able to forgive her for Soren’s death, but at the same time he was ashamed by the way he’d acted toward her, regardless of how he’d felt. He thought of all the things she’d done for him on that mission, despite knowing full well that he hated her – coming back to get him from the harvesting room, risking her life and her secret to keep him from being crushed out on the landing pad….
And even after all that, he’d still had the audacity to be a complete jerk to her in the past few days. She’d only been trying to help, albeit in a rather unorthodox way, and in the end she had helped and he was grateful for it. He wasn’t entirely sure why he felt compelled to treat her so well; after all, she’d been such a shouka to him and everyone else around her. Maybe – just maybe – if he was kind enough to her, she would finally start to mellow out.
Aroska suddenly snapped awake – wait, I’d been asleep? – startled by the sensation of a thousand tiny creatures crawling over his body. He began to flail and swat at his clothes, but it took him only a moment to realize there was nothing actually there. A cold sweat dripped from his face, and as he turned to rearrange his jacket he noticed he was trembling. He rolled onto his side and drew his arms and legs in tight.
It was then that he noticed Ziva wasn’t on the sofa. He wasn’t sure when she’d stopped working on the rifle, but all the tools sat untouched on the workbench and the lighting panel had been powered down, leaving the dim orange glow from the heater as the only source of light. He did his best to look around the room while remaining curled, straining to see past his arms and out into the darkness.
After a moment, he caught sight of her standing in front of the tiny window beside the overhead door that led out onto the landing pad. She wasn’t much more than a shadow, a silhouette against the glow of the city lights outside. Even in the dark, however, he could tell she was looking at him. He watched her through the space between his arms, certain she couldn’t tell he was looking back. Was she concerned? With her face obscured, it was impossible to tell – the only thing he knew for sure was that she was facing him.
Aroska felt a hot wave of shame surge through him, and he was glad the darkness concealed his red face. There he was, curled up on the floor like a small child while the woman who had come to him for help looked on expectantly. He had spent too long poisoning his body and developing dependencies on those poisons, and now there he was in such a vulnerable state when Ziva was the one in trouble. He realized then how desperately he needed to clean up his act, if for no other reason than to apologize to her for being an ass when she’d been right all along.
Curious as to what she was doing, Aroska stole another peek out into the room. He was startled to find that she was no longer in her place at the window, but the fear that she’d know he’d been spying kept him from looking around. For a moment, he wondered if she had simply been a part of the hallucination, but when he saw that she still wasn’t on the sofa, he knew she had to be up and about somewhere.
At one point he thought he heard the stairs creak, but he wasn’t sure if it was just another one of the strange noises ripping through his skull. Aroska slowed his breathing as best he could to listen, and after several seconds of nothing, he settled back down against his jacket and let the involuntary trembling overtake him.
He felt sleep creeping toward him – or perhaps it was the onset of another hellish nightmare – but was startled awake again when he caught a whiff of a familiar scent and felt a change in the air as someone moved up behind him. Something warm but not particularly soft settled down over his shoulders: Ziva’s riding jacket. She adjusted it a bit, so quickly and gently that he couldn’t even feel her touch. How she could move so silently was beyond him.
“You’ll get through this,” she said. Her tone wasn’t particularly kind, but the words had been said nonetheless.
Her presence lingered there behind him for a few seconds longer before vanishing again, just as it had from the window. Aroska spent what seemed like hours listening for her return, but after a while the fatigue and pain overtook him and he drifted off again.
When he came to, morning light was streaming in through the window and Kat’s aircar was gone. He didn’t remember hearing anyone leave, but then again he didn’t remember much at all. The only indicator that anything had happened at all during the night was Ziva’s jacket, which had slid from his shoulders and was now sitting in a crumpled heap behind him.
Aroska worked his way into a sitting position and took a moment to stretch his stiff shoulders. He would be sore later – he’d dreaded sleeping on the floor for exactly that reason. And then Ziva hadn’t even used the sofa, rendering his chivalrous efforts futile. It went right along with the things he’d been thinking about earlier. It was hard to feel motivated to be nice to her when all he got in return was…well, a bad back.
He stood up and wandered upstairs. The only sign of life was the occasional tapping of a keyboard, and he found Kade staring half-heartedly at the computer screen.
Shevin greeted him with a brief nod. “Rough night?” His tone made it sound as though he knew good and well what the answer was.
“You could say that,” Aroska replied. Except for a throbbing headache, he felt much better. “Where are the women?”
“Kat was going to drop Ziva off at the swordsmith’s and then go talk to Bosco. They said they wouldn’t be long.”
The thought of the two of them out running errands while there was so much danger to be dealt with seemed absurd, but Aroska shrugged it off and made himself busy looking through Kat’s cupboards. He wasn’t particularly hungry, so upon thinking harder he wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for. When he opened the last cupboard and found it bare except for a half-empty bottle of fancy liquor, he realized what he had subconsciously been seeking. He felt himself start to sweat again and immediately slammed the door shut.
Succumbing to the temptation would only make matters worse; there was a half-smoked govino stick in his bag that he could use instead.
Fighting away another bout of the shakes, Aroska filled a glass with water and seated himself at the little table across from Kade. The young man was busy rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and was no longer paying any attention to the decryption program that continued to run on his computer. Aroska was beginning to wonder if they’d ever be able to open the locked files. He wished Zinni were there to help.
He took a sip of his water. “Are you worried about your family?” he asked.
“Of course,” Kade replied without hesitation. “You have no idea how awful I feel for abandoning them the way I have. But at the same time, I know I’ve done the right thing by leaving them behind. Trying to bring them along would have only put them in more danger than they already were. Besides, the less my wife knows, the better – I’d hate to see her or the baby get hurt trying to help me with my own mess.”
“Well,” Aroska said, “if there’s one thing I know about Ziva’s people, it’s that they’ll do anything to keep your family safe.”
Kade nodded and stole a glance at the computer screen. “What about you? You married?”
“Me? Hell no. I’ve never had much luck with women.”
“Funny. You strike me as the type of guy who could get his pick of the crop.”
“Who says I can’t? It’s the commitment part I’ve always had trouble with.”
“So you and Ziva aren’t…?”
“Oh no, no way.”
Kade smiled. “Just wondering,” he said.
Aroska felt his face flush and he dipped his head, forcing a nervous smile. “No, it’s really not like that at all. I do care for her, something I never expected to happen, but it’s not like that. I owe that woman my life.”
He proceeded to explain how he had come to know Ziva, how she had killed Soren, how he’d been forced to join her in the struggle against Solaris and the Sardons. It struck him how much they’d been through together given that they’d only been acquainted for a short time. “She was prepared to do whatever it took to get me out of the way,” he said, altering his account of what had transpired on the Dakiti landing pad so Ziva’s Nosti abilities were excluded. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever understand why she chose to risk her own life for me when it would have been so much easier to just let me die.”
Aroska sighed and took another drink of water. “She took something from me that can never be replaced, but it hasn’t been easy to stay mad at her. How am I supposed to keep hating her after everything she’s done for me? It’s like she’s given me something new in return for what she stole – I’m just not quite sure what it is yet.”
He paused for a moment and thought of the day she’d come barging back into his life – in the most literal sense of the phrase. If she had come into the house a mere ten seconds later…. “She has saved me in more ways than she knows,” he murmured.
“So tell her that,” Kade said matter-of-factly.
“No, you don’t know Ziva.” Neither do I, for that matter. “She doesn’t want to hear that, not when we’re right in the middle of something as big as this. There’s already something eating at her as it is – I don’t want to stress her out.”
Kade laughed. “Stress Ziva out? That doesn’t seem very hard.”
Aroska laughed a bit himself, though he felt uncomfortable doing it. Ziva had indeed been acting strange, almost as if she knew something nobody else knew. He wished she would stop being such a hypocrite, urging others to spill their guts while she remained silent and reserved.
Shevin’s smile faded when he realized Aroska was no longer laughing. He cleared his throat. “There’s still something I just can’t figure out, and I want to know what you think. We’re finding all these signs of a conspiracy – Spence and Fromm’s deaths, the fact that these people want me dead – but there’s nothing that really proves Ziva is innocent. We’ve heard her side of the story, but it’s just…if she didn’t kill Tachi, who did, and why?”
Aroska sighed and wiped his hand over his face. It was a valid point, but it sickened him to think that he’d essentially put his life on hold to help a guilty person. “I don’t know what to think, kid. If she was guilty, there wouldn’t be much point in her denying it anymore. She’d be defeated, she’d be caught. Besides, I doubt she would have reached out to anyone for help – she’d be long gone by now.” He paused and thought of the way she’d immersed herself in his case files on the trip to Chaiavis, the way she’d snapped at Kade for taking too long with the encryption, the way she’d excused herself to work on the rifle the night before. “No, she’s still fighting, searching for something. There’s something driving her, and I wish I knew what it was.”
Before either of them could say anything further, the computer beeped and the screen was highlighted in various shades of green as Zona’s files were finally unlocked. Shevin’s face lit up and he began typing furiously, and Aroska moved his chair around to get a better look.
About half of the files pertained to the present case, and the other half were from three years prior. It appeared Zona had been busy comparing the two occasions, searching for similarities. His findings had been stored in a separate file of notes.
“This information is about Ziva and Dasaro,” Kade said, eyebrows knit. “What the…” He hesitated a moment before opening the file marked CONCLUSIONS.
Aroska’s eyes were on the move, eating up all the information the second it was displayed on the screen. Some of it was already familiar to him, thanks to the special ops clearance Dasaro had provided him with, but there were some things the captain had left out that immediately filled in the gaps he’d been struggling with throughout the past few days. As he read the final line of Zona’s findings, everything became clear.
“Sheyss,” he muttered.
-72-
Bosco’s Parts and Repair
Chaiavis
Kat was startled to find the landing pad already occupied when she arrived at Bosco’s shop. It wasn’t often that anyone other than the locals frequented the place, so the freighter-sized vessel that was currently docked there seemed out of place. It had a classic Haphezian look to it, though it was nothing like the ships used by the embassy. It looked to be an older model and had no doubt been modified on several occasions.
Somewhat annoyed, Kat brought her aircar to rest on a neighboring shop’s landing pad and got out, shielding her eyes from the mid-morning sun. She and Ziva had chosen a rendezvous where they would meet in thirty minutes after they had each completed their respective tasks. Kat had refrained from saying why exactly she wished to speak to Bosco, partly because she didn’t know herself. First on the agenda was to demand an explanation as to why he had chosen to send the three refugees to her. While she was glad to have crossed paths with Ziva, there were certain…circumstances – which Bosco was well aware of – that could potentially make it difficult for her to assist them.
But, since she already was assisting them, she figured it would be smart to stock up on supplies and see if the older man had any advice on how to proceed. He was the closest thing she’d ever had to a father and was the only person she had told about the puzzle she’d been putting together over the past three years. With the new information that had come to light thanks to Ziva and her crew, Kat thought a fresh set of ears might help.
She worked her way up the walkway to Bosco’s landing pad, studying the strange ship as she went. The boarding ramp had been left down, indicating that the customer either didn’t intend on staying long or wished to make a hasty exit.
With her attention devoted to the vessel, it took Kat a moment to realize the shop’s open sign wasn’t on. Most accurately, it was a glowing banner above the door that, when illuminated, displayed the shop’s open status in a variety of Fringe languages. It sat there dead at the moment…strange considering Bosco’s shop was rarely closed, and when it was he had always called t
o let her know.
The interior lights were on, so Kat concluded that Bosco had simply forgotten to turn on his sign. She hit the door controls and stopped short – it was locked.
“What the hell?” she muttered, trying again. She pressed her face to the small window in the door and strained to see inside. Nothing looked out of place, and somehow that made her entirely uncomfortable.
Kat took a step backward and glanced behind her. The strange ship still sat motionless and it didn’t appear that there was anyone in the cockpit. Still, she felt as though she was somehow being watched, and she had a strong feeling she should not be there.
Even stronger, however, was the pull to find out what was going on and see if the old shopkeeper was okay. Taking one last glance through the window, Kat moved back and surveyed her options. The roof provided the best means of getting a look inside. The ceiling of the shop’s foyer wasn’t overly high, but it rose up in the back to make way for the storage shelves and was interrupted every so often by narrow skylights.
Kat took hold of one of the reinforced cables that ran up the side of the shop’s outer wall. These ran into fans and various fixtures on the roof, no doubt part of the ventilation system for the rest of the towering building. She began to climb, using the braces that fixed the cable to the wall as footholds, and hauled herself onto the roof. The higher part with the skylights angled upward before her and stood taller than the shops on either side of it, leaving her out in the open and vulnerable should anyone with unfriendly intentions come along. She pressed on anyway.
It appeared the skylights hadn’t been cleaned for some time, if they’d ever been cleaned at all. Kat settled down beside one and peered inside as best she could; unfortunately anyone within the shop would be able to see her much better than she’d be able to see them. She took comfort in the fact that they weren’t likely to be looking up.