Morgan skewered him with a look, but complied, slipping the jacket and pants over her wetsuit. It wasn't a bad fit.
The female guard stirred. Ravindra shot her through the forehead, a clinical execution.
Morgan bit her lip, but she didn't say anything. By now, she ought to know better. A man did what he had to do.
"Call our friends," Ravindra said.
While she opened the gate to the cell block and unlocked the cells, he propped the bodies up in chairs. They sagged, but they might pass muster for a casual glance. He met Eastly and Partridge at the door.
Eastly tried to look past him. "Are they...?"
"Don't ask." Ravindra pushed a nerve whip, and the guard's uniform, into his hand. "Put these on."
Eastly swallowed. "Sure."
The man was understandably frightened but seemed more resolute. Any soldier who went into combat unafraid was a fool. The pants and jacket were a little too big, but he'd pass.
Ravindra handed the other nerve whip to Partridge. The man frowned down at the weapon, deployed it once, briefly, at a wall, then caught Ravindra's gaze with a look that said 'ready'.
Ravindra opened the door to Prasad's cell first. The intelligence officer stood, legs apart, facing the door, his face set until he recognized his visitor.
"Srimana." A wide smile on his face, he jumped out of the cell.
Prasad hadn't been mistreated, then. Ravindra hid his relief. "We'll talk later. First we'll collect the others."
Prasad went to the next cell where Jirra was imprisoned while Ravindra opened the doors for Tullamarran, then Davaskar. They clustered around him, relief shining in their eyes, all speaking Manesai.
"Good to see you, Admiral. Do we have weapons?" Davaskar asked.
"Only a couple. We'll have to collect others as we go." Ravindra handed a knife to Prasad, took the nerve whips from Eastly and Partridge and gave them to Jirra and Tullamarran. Morgan gave her pistol to Davaskar.
"What's the plan?" Prasad slipped the knife into his belt
"We steal a transport, get back to our ship. Easy," Ravindra said. They knew it wasn't.
"Who are these two?" Prasad said, eyeing Partridge and Eastly.
"They've helped us," Ravindra said. "What happened to you? How were you taken?"
"A squad of police raided the hotel early in the morning and arrested us. We didn't stand a chance. Four of them to each room, all armed. We were loaded onto a transport and brought here. I was questioned separately. I suppose we all were?" Prasad gazed around at the others. "They accused us of being part of some sort of organization I'd never heard of, that we were here to help them subvert the government. Same for everyone?"
A chorus of agreement.
"Name of Veritas?" Morgan asked.
Prasad nodded.
"No one was hurt?" Ravindra asked.
They shook their heads.
"Maybe they decided it was a trumped-up charge." Ravindra shrugged. "Anyway, right now we have to get out of here. Morgan?"
"We've won one round, anyway. The transport is on the landing pad. It's a standard RS-300 troop transport, probably the one that delivered you here. I've flown these a hundred times. At least. So that's a bonus. But we have to go up twenty levels to get to the landing pad. We can take a lift. I think I can keep them from stopping it."
"Go." Ravindra turned to Partridge and Eastly, speaking in Standard. "Do your best to keep up. We must hurry."
Partridge laid a hand on his arm as he jogged along. "Are you human?"
"Why do you ask?"
"You have superhuman strength. Haven't you?"
"I'm as human as Morgan," he replied.
"A… Supertech? No, that's not right."
"No. A modified human." The words felt strange, a shiver coursing through him. But it was true, nevertheless. "Enough. Keep your questions for later."
Ravindra herded everyone into a lift. They pressed together, all nervous. Tullamarran stared at the ceiling, Jirra chewed her lip, Eastly, wide-eyed, gazed at the faces around him. Ravindra wondered if he could still trust these two. If he couldn't, if they crossed him, he would kill them without compunction. Morgan stood motionless. Behind those contacts her eyes would be vague as she smoothed their progress through the Temple.
The lift stopped. Morgan kept the doors closed. "Guards, one on either side of the entrance to the landing pad. They're relaxed. There are another twelve troops in easy hailing distance."
"We have to get out of here without alerting anybody," Ravindra said. "We still have to get to the space port and transfer to Vulsaur."
Morgan heaved a sigh. "I'll give this a try. Orders to the guards up here about a prisoner transfer." In the space of a heartbeat, her lips twitched. "Done. Eastly and I will escort the rest of you. Look suitably downcast, please."
She led the way, back straight, erect. Eastly strutted beside them, looking and acting the part. One of the guards in the doorway raised a hand, eyes narrowed. "Just two guards for all of these?"
"Don't need any more. They've been drugged." She swept a hand at Eastly. "Keep them moving."
Ravindra, his head lowered, heard the hiss of a door opening, then a soft clunk as the ramp hit the ground. It seemed to be enough for the guard, who stepped back as they shuffled past him.
Morgan raised the ramp as soon as the last person was on board. "I don't know how long that'll last," she said, hurrying through unfamiliar hatches to the bridge. "I took a gamble that the guards are like guards anywhere. They get an order, they obey. If they ask too many questions…"
She slid into the pilot's seat in a cramped, utilitarian bridge. No comforts here.
"Won't they question the ship leaving?" Ravindra clamped the harness over his shoulders even as the transport lifted off, thrusters roaring in the confined space.
"I put a departure in their log. Standard practice."
The ship rose above the heights. To Ravindra's right the white tower at the centre of the temple building gleamed in the sunlight. The sea looked calm and yet the waves crashed against the cliffs at the base of the island. White foam leapt up the black rocks, as if reaching out a misty hand to claw them back. He looked across at Morgan's profile, her straight nose, long eyelashes almost shading her eyes, the short lobes on her ears just visible under the curl of dark hair that held a hint of red. She hid behind a wall of stubborn aggression, warding off all attempts at closeness. Even with him, after all this time. What was it like to be her, to control that mighty computer in her head even as the rest of her brain ran her body? She had such unbelievable power over anything with a computer interface. He'd known that, of course, seen her handle a capital ship on her own, deal with Artemis. But that had all been military. Now she'd shown him the vast extent of her abilities. She could accumulate enormous wealth, manipulate governments, banks, the military, whatever she wanted.
"Have a got I pimple on my nose?" She was grinning.
Ravindra cleared his throat, but was saved from having to comment when Davaskar stepped through the hatch. "What's the plan?"
"We dock at the station, then we walk around to our own ship." She looked at Ravindra. "Are you happy with that?"
"No problem docking?" Ravindra asked.
"I've said it's a military training exercise, short term berth required."
Police would be waiting for them but his guess was that at most they'd send half a dozen. This was a trumped-up charge, based on Marina Seabright's complaints and judging by what Prasad had said, the police were aware of that. For the crew, anyway, if not for him and Morgan. He had to hope they hadn't broken into the ship. But then, they wouldn't be able to. Morgan would have seen to that.
Chapter 26
So far so good, Morgan thought. They'd been incredibly lucky. Or maybe they were incredibly lucky that people depended so much on technology. Morgan connected with Vulsaur. Might as well air the ship and get the artificial gravity working so they could get on board and disappear quickly. The artificial gravity syst
em acknowledged, but the air supply system returned a fault. The valves were stuck.
Fuck it. This was the last thing they needed, messing about with a problem at the last moment.
"Change of plan, Ashkar."
Ravindra looked at her with his 'please explain' expression.
"There's a mechanical problem with Vulsaur's air supply system. I'd best go in the backdoor and fix it. I'll take an exo-suit and go in through the cargo bay."
His brows lowered. "Must you?"
She raised both hands. "Do you want to sit at a berth waiting for everyone to realize something's happened? Wasn't the idea to clean up the local security and bugger off as fast as we can?"
"Yes." The frown persisted. "You don't think they breached the ship, that they're waiting on board? Remember the alert you received earlier?"
"That was somebody stopped at the first hurdle, probably the Trimasi trying their luck at the docking bridge. I would have been notified if anybody had actually made it on board. A mechanical problem is all it can be."
"Well, go on then."
Morgan found the exo-suits hanging in the hold next to the airlock. Suited up, she went into the airlock and set the release in motion. Just like a submarine, only different. Strange how confronting a vacuum was so much more comfortable than multiples of atmospheric pressure. The indicator light blazed red and the hatch released. She floated up into the vacuum, while the transport moved away from her, heading for its allocated bay. The space station rose before her, tiers of ships hanging in their docks. Vulsaur wasn't far way, one level and three places around. From here she could just see the ship's stern.
Morgan fired her suit's jets, at the same time directing Vulsaur to open the cargo hatch. The bay door dropped slowly, revealing a dark maw. From here the valves for the air supply were close by, down in the engine room. This shouldn't take long. She angled her body and fired the suit's retro-jets gently, slowing herself down. A little more to the left and she landed feet first into the ship's gravity field.
She closed the hold with a thought, walking up to the main corridor which would take her to the engine room. A figure stepped out in front of her.
Morgan stopped, her heart thundering. What the fuck? A woman wearing a Coalition Fleet exo-suit pointed a pistol at her. The face matched an individual in her personal personnel files. Ellen Cruickshank. Supertech.
"Ellen. What the fuck are you doing here?"
Cruickshank smiled, but it wasn't a friendly smile. "Foul-mouthed as ever. Had to find me in your database, didn't you?"
What was this about? Where had she come from? Why was she here? The thoughts crowded together, one after another. "We weren't exactly friends," Morgan said.
"No, I suppose we weren't. You were too busy being best buddies with Admiral Makasa, or snuggling up with a hotshot fighter pilot."
Keep her talking. I might get some clue, but she's aiming that pistol very carefully. "Not necessarily fighter pilots."
Cruickshank smirked. "No. You've branched out into foreign admirals, I believe."
So she knew about Ravindra. "Only one. What's it to you? Fancy him yourself?"
Cruickshank's nostrils flared. That hit home.
"I just might get my chance, Selwood." She almost spat the name, lip curled. "But you won't know about it. You see, I'm going to kill you." With the pistol still aimed at Morgan's chest, she pointed at a spot against the bulkhead. "Sit down, bitch. Before I kill you, I want you to know why."
Kill me? Me? Was she under orders from somebody? Makasa, maybe? Morgan sank down onto the floor, searching for a weapon, anything to fight back. Keep her talking. "I'd be interested to know why, too. What have I ever done to you?"
"Everything. Makasa's golden-haired girl. You could do no wrong, and me, he ignored. I'm as smart as you. No, smarter. And you're going to die, because you should be already dead, out there past Calisto's Veil."
"Calisto's Veil? Yes, I had a problem with Curlew, but we managed to fix it."
Cruickshank bared her teeth, her lips drawn back. "You fixed it? I don't believe you. You couldn't fix it."
A memory nudged. Cruickshank had been part of the test team. A junior member, sure. "Weren't you on the test team?"
The cruelty of Cruickshank's smile took Morgan's breath away. The woman was crazy.
"You were set up to fail. I adjusted the test results."
You bitch. Rage surging up her spine, Morgan flung herself at Cruickshank. The woman took a step back, and fired.
***
Ravindra watched the monitors in the ship's hold, while the IS guided the transport into a bay. Partridge was nominally in the pilot's seat in case they had to speak to station control, but the docking proceeded without incident.
"It should be straightforward," Eastly said. "We don't need to go through immigration. We just walk onto the station, because this ship came from the planet." Even so, the tightness around his eyes betrayed his feelings.
"I wish we had some more weapons," Davaskar remarked as he checked over the laser pistol yet again.
The ship swayed. The outer screens showed the umbilicals snaking out from the dock; a docking corridor, lines. They hadn't asked for water or air.
Jirra bounced through the bridge hatch, waving a pistol. "I found this on the bridge."
Ravindra watched her tuck the pistol into her belt. Good. One more weapon. They had three pistols, two nerve whips, three laser-lances, a few pieces of corplast, and a knife between them. It would have to do.
"We'll be expected," Ravindra said. "But our advantage is that they are expecting two, provided the prison break hasn't yet been discovered. So we can assume a small party."
"Any word from Morgan?" Prasad asked.
"No." Ravindra had to admit her silence was starting to worry him, but there was nothing he could do. Morgan had set up the security so that any of their crew could get through, but no one else. They could at least get on board, provided she had the ship aired up. "We don't have time to wait. Jirra and I will go first. The rest of you follow in pairs, but not obviously. They must believe Jirra and I are alone. Be ready to act as soon as we're approached." One more thing. "Tullamarran, see if there's an exo-suit on this ship which will fit me if necessary."
Tullamarran bowed his head and headed aft.
"The hold, Tullamarran, hanging on the bulkhead," Jirra called.
The man returned, carrying a compressed package. "It adjusts to size, Srimana."
The hatch seals hissed. Time to go.
Prasad shared a look with Jirra.
Ravindra, Jirra, Prasad and Tullamarran entered the airlock first. Davaskar had been nominated to go with the two humans. No one said anything, but the tension was obvious, almost palpable in the air. They walked out onto the dock together.
"Good luck," Prasad murmured, squeezing Jirra's shoulder.
Ravindra and Jirra stepped onto the travelator which would take them to a lift foyer. One level up, and then right. Two other people stood in the lift when it opened. They shuffled into a corner to make room for the newcomers, then ignored them. When the lift stopped, the humans stepped out at the same level, but went left instead of right.
Ravindra loitered at a shop window to give the rest of the crew time to catch up.
"Do you think she's all right?" Jirra asked.
Ravindra almost jumped. He'd been wondering the same thing. Morgan still hadn't called. "I don't know. But first things first, Lieutenant." He caught a glimpse of Davaskar exiting the lift, and took Jirra's arm. "Let's go."
"Of course." Jirra walked steadily beside him, putting on an excellent act of innocence.
Two people loitered in the corridor, apparently examining goods on sale in a shop. If they weren't police he wasn't an admiral.
"Srimana…"
He inclined his head. Yes.
They reached the gate before the two police officers approached. "That'll do," the taller of the two said. "Put your hands on your heads. You're under arrest."
> Ravindra did as he was told. Speaking in Manesai, he said, "If they touch us, take them out."
"Shut up, you. And turn around. Slowly."
Ravindra pivoted, turning like a dancer to face two large men carrying nerve whips. Two others had emerged from somewhere, also armed. Davaskar shot one, Prasad the other. The men facing them turned to look. Ravindra struck the man closest to him, punching him in the face with his right hand while his left deflected the hand holding the nerve whip, which discharged harmlessly into the wall. Jirra leaped into the air and used her feet. Her man slid to the ground groaning and clutching his genitals.
"Well done. Dead?" Ravindra asked Prasad and Davaskar.
"No. High dose stun. They should be out for long enough." Davaskar grinned, raising his pistol. "Want me to do the same to these two?"
"Yes."
Davaskar shot the two men while Tullamarran opened the gate. Between them, they pulled the police officers inside and fastened their arms with their own shackles.
Ravindra stared at the sanvad on his wrist. She still hadn't called. Maybe there was a problem. He pressed the speed dial. "Morgan?"
She answered immediately. "I'm busy. Go away."
Her voice sounded strained, abrupt. What in all the hells was going on?
***
The blast cut into Morgan's arm. Air hissed out before the suit resealed itself. Morgan clamped her teeth shut despite the pain. She wouldn't give the bitch the satisfaction of showing how much it hurt.
She didn't need Ravindra's interruption, either. "I'm busy," she growled in her head. "Go away."
"Makasa won't be coming to your rescue. And your boyfriend, and his companions, will walk into a security police ambush." Cruickshank chuckled. "It's just you and me. Oh, by the way, I've worked out how you've changed the drive on this ship. Very clever. And with you out of the way, it'll be my invention, my credit."
I won't be able to talk my way out of this one. Cruickshank had everything to win with Morgan gone. And since Morgan was supposed to be dead, Cruickshank didn't even have to explain a body, as long as she destroyed it.
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