Somewhere to her right, a door slid open.
Long, retractable metal arms scooped her up and placed her on a stretcher, and then she was towed out.
The launch bay was empty, and when she was tugged out into a passageway, that was empty, too.
As she passed a closed door, though, she heard thumping, like someone was pounding on it, and flinched as it sounded like someone threw themselves at the wall.
The med chamber must be close to the launch bay, because she was pulled through a door after what felt like only a few minutes, and it was the sterile white and silver she'd come to associate with Dr. Jasa's rooms.
She could hear someone, or more than one person, in the adjoining room. They were talking and moving around.
It made her feel vulnerable and frightened, lying absolutely helpless.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and saw a tiny, delicate robot arm extending out, something clasped in its claws.
She couldn't move, couldn't do anything, as it inserted whatever it was in her ear, but her heart beat double time, and she found it harder and harder to breath.
“Now we can talk privately, without anyone listening in.” The voice was back, this time directly in her ear, and she forced herself to relax.
Just an earpiece. All the Grih had them, there was no reason to be afraid of it.
“I don't know how long this is going to take, but I hope not long, because we don't have much time.” The voice was quiet, and urgent.
Then something was done to her, because Fee felt her grip on consciousness wrenched from her, and she sank down, slowly, gently, into black.
* * *
Hal was almost sorry he hadn't dialed back the shockgun setting a little more when he'd pulled the trigger. He needed the Tecran awake.
But hurting him after what he'd done to Fiona had felt extremely satisfying.
Now, though, he'd lost the runner that had taken her. He didn't know where it had gone, and he couldn't work out how it had disappeared.
And he was in another dead zone.
Dead zones were starting to really piss him off.
He'd used the restraints he'd found onboard and tied the Tecran to a chair that seemed to be specifically for prisoners, and now he looked him over, nicely secured, and tried to think what would wake him.
Maybe a small jolt with the shockgun? Lowest setting, lowest discharge. A tiny little nip.
It was worth a try, because time was ticking away.
Hal set it up and pulled the trigger, and the Tecran jerked awake with a screech.
They stared at each other for a beat.
Then the Tecran looked around, and Hal saw him take in that he wasn't in a prison cell on Larga Ways, but still in the runner he'd jumped into to avoid Tean Lee's guards.
“I've got some questions for you.” Hal dialed the shockgun up again. “Let's start with your name.”
“You can call me Cy.” The Tecran's Grihan was almost impossible to understand. And Hal would bet serious money there was a Commander or Lieutenant in front of his name. Everything about him screamed Tecran military officer.
“Do you speak Garmman?” It seemed likely, given how this seemed to be more and more leaning to a Garmman-Tecran conspiracy.
Cy nodded.
“Good.” Hal switched to Garmman. “It's simple. You abducted Fiona Russell. I want to know where she's gone.”
Cy frowned. “You didn't follow her?”
“I did. I've lost her.”
His prisoner jerked in surprise. “How long have I been out?”
“Just over an hour.” Hal narrowed his eyes. “We're close, aren't we?”
He saw the Tecran weighing up whether to answer honestly or not.
“Depends how lost you are. But, yes.”
His prisoner was glad they were close, Hal decided. Which meant he thought there'd be back-up waiting to help him. That Hal would be taking him exactly where he wanted to go.
So he'd have to manage this really carefully.
“Show me.” Hal moved forward and unclipped the chair Cy was strapped to, rolled it over to the console, and clipped it back in.
The Tecran talked him through the coordinates, and Hal frowned at the screen. According to Cy, the runner carrying Fiona had dipped into Balco's atmosphere, which is why he'd lost them. It was headed for a Tecran battleship hidden in the huge, static storm that sat in a thick column, rising from the planet's surface all the way to the very top.
The storm was created from the unique characteristics of Balco's orbit and topography, and it never moved more than two thou in any direction. The Balcoans called it Kyber's Arm.
Hal wondered what battleship had the strength to hover inside the storm, even at the very top.
“A Levron?” He hadn't thought a Tecran Levron battleship, the Tecran's main military vessel, could enter and leave a planet's atmosphere all that easily. Most of the Grih's ships, the explorers and the battleships, were space-going only. They couldn't land or lift off from a planet's surface. If the Levron could, they were more advanced than anyone at Battle Center knew.
Cy looked at him sidelong. Then shrugged. “Yes, a Levron. It's maintaining altitude almost at the very top of the storm system, right at the edge of the atmosphere. It's not a comfortable position, but it's just doable.”
Hal regarded him for a long moment. He was lying. Something in the way his eyes flicked, and the almost imperceptible laughter that had flashed in his eyes, told him there wasn't a Levron waiting for him in the dark, bruised clouds boiling up below them.
Which meant only one thing.
It was a Class 5.
Had to be. The only thing more powerful than a Levron was the Class 5, and the Tecran would hardly be laughing quietly at the surprise in store for Hal if the ship was less powerful than he'd indicated.
“So, there's a Class 5,” he said as he rolled the prisoner's chair back to its original position, and Cy jerked in surprise. “Why do you think they left you behind? You had time to get in before I made it to the runner.”
The Tecran clamped his mouth shut.
“Sacrificed you, didn't they? If you hadn't managed to jump onboard my ship, you'd be in lockup on Larga Ways right now, answering some difficult questions. And the fact that you're obviously a Tecran officer would have made things very difficult for your high command. For that alone, I would have thought they'd have waited for you, even if you'd completely botched your mission.”
“I don't know.” The words were grated out. “It must have been a mistake.”
“Didn't look like a mistake to me.” Hal grinned at him.
“What's your plan? Do you think you can take on a Class 5 in this?” Cy's sneer was ugly.
“I don't plan to take it on. I'm just going to explain to your captain that there is a tracking device in Fiona's clothes and we can prove they took her. Larga Ways, and by extension, Balco, as well as the Garmman UC councilor, and Grih Battle Center, are aware they've got Fiona, and if they don't hand her over, whatever trouble they've got with the UC at the moment will seem like a holiday compared to the trouble that will rain down on them for this.”
The Tecran was silent.
There was a faint ping from the controls and Hal looked over at them. They were following a shallow trajectory, all set to dip into Balco's atmosphere, everything working well, and then suddenly, the engines cut off.
The runner went into a spin, throwing Hal against the wall, and then, like a skipping stone on the surface of a lake, they skimmed the surface of the atmosphere and bounced back into space.
Hal pressed himself onto the floor as they whipped around and around.
Looked like the Tecran weren't pleased to see them.
17
The Larga Ways patrol runner did one last, lazy turn, then settled back upright and drifted.
Hal levered himself into a crouch and then slowly stood, shaking out his arms and legs.
He was bruised, but nothing was broken.
Cy had had it even easier, tied to a chair that was bolted to the floor, he hadn't so much as a scratch on him.
From the control panel came the insistent, shrill alarm warning the air filtration was no longer in operation.
They'd been flicked away like a buzzing insect and left to die. Hal knew they only had half an hour of air left, maybe an hour, if they were lucky.
Cy watched him, face tight with fear. No more laughing smugness.
Whoever was in charge of the Class 5 must know one of their own was onboard, their sensors would tell them, but they were clearly fine with killing him, anyway.
The patrol runner was small, just four seats around the control panel, space for two prisoners with their own secured seats, and a tiny bathroom at the back. A food and drink station was located opposite the runner's entrance, and beside it was a second recessed cabinet. Hal opened it, and pulled out six personal breathing cylinders. They were good for an hour each.
Cy's seat was facing away from the cabinet, but his head could turn a lot further than a Grihan's, and he fixed a desperate eye on Hal.
“Three hours each, and whatever's left in the cabin,” Hal told him, holding up two of the cylinders.
Hal walked back to the control panel, checked the readings. “We have some time before we'll need them, but I suggest we use them first, and only breath what's in the cabin at the end.” There was always a little more in the cabin than the readings said, always a little more hope. When a cylinder was dead, it was dead.
Cy said nothing until he crouched down in front of him, and started to lift the breather over his head.
“You don't have to share.”
Hal paused. “Yes, I do. The Grih are still bound by the Sentient Beings Agreement, whatever the Tecran have decided.”
Cy winced at that. “That woman is trouble. She has been since the day we took her.”
“You should have left her alone then.” Hal looked straight into Cy's face as he settled the breather over his mouth, and the Tecran looked away.
He engaged it, then put one over his own mouth and instead of sitting, lay down on the floor, closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing.
He wished now that Battle Center had shared more on what they'd learned about Class 5s from Sazo with their senior officers. Farso Lothric's confession that he wasn't the only Grihan officer who'd helped Garmman councilor Fu-tama, and by extension, the Tecran, in their development of the Class 5s, had left Battle Center unwilling to trust their own senior staff, and they'd made the decision to keep as much back as they could until everyone was vetted.
Maybe he could find out a little now. He didn't think Cy would be as cagey about things when he was about to be killed by his own people. He opened his eyes and turned to the Tecran, looking up at him from his spot on the floor.
“How did you know Fiona Russell was onboard the Illium?” His question was a little muffled by the mask, but Cy heard him well enough.
Cy shrugged. “I did't know. I was given a mission, and I carried it out. I don't know how they knew she was there.”
It sounded like he was telling the truth.
The Tecran shifted in the chair. “How did she get on your ship in the first place?” His eyes never left Hal's face as he asked.
It wouldn't hurt to tell him, now that half the security guards on Larga Ways no doubt had the information from Tean Lee. “She was being held captive on a Garmman trader we came across.”
He watched Cy's face grimace behind the mask.
“They admit to where they got her?”
Hal's smile was not friendly. “No. But then you kidnapped her back, and removed all doubt.”
The Tecran sighed. “What now?”
Hal lifted his shoulders in an awkward shrug.
“Until someone decides to talk to me, or puts the runner's power back online, we wait.” There was an emergency help beacon under a protective cover on the control panel. He guessed it was deactivated as well, but if it wasn't, it was probably because the Tecran wanted Larga Ways to respond. Wanted to take them out, too. He could punch in the code, get some of Lee's security runners out here, but he'd most likely be luring them into a trap.
The lens feed from outside the runner was the only thing still working, and the screen above the control panel showed they were facing Balco, looking down on it just above where Kyber's Arm swirled, a dark gray and purple bruise hovering over the western desert.
He closed his eyes, struggled to get his breathing even again. He'd let them play their games for a bit, if this was a game and not deadly serious, but if it went on too long, he'd have no choice but to call for help.
Every minute that ticked by was one more where Fiona Russell was at their mercy.
* * *
Fee came awake in a rush, her heart beating in a wild rhythm. She lay still, trying to hear over the pounding in her ears. There was a low murmur of voices nearby, and then a shout, and she thought a shout might have been what had woken her.
It sounded at least a wall away, though, and she had the sense she was alone in the room.
She opened her eyes a crack, and when there was no movement and no one came into view, she opened them properly and sat up. It hit her that she could sit up, unlike before, and she shivered with relief, lifting her hands and wiggling her fingers.
Everything seemed to be where it should be, and she had control of her body again. She felt good, she realized. No stiffness, no aches. She wasn't hungry or thirsty, either.
Whatever else they'd done to her, they'd patched her up well.
She was in a med chamber, and now that she looked at it properly, she vaguely recalled being brought here earlier.
More sounds of people talking vibrated through the wall; urgent and angry, rather than relaxed chatting, and then something made a scraping sound in the ceiling above her.
She slid off the high bed she'd been lying on and looked upward.
The scraping came again, almost directly overhead, and she edged back, looking for a way out.
“Are you able to run?” The voice was low, urgent, and directly in her ear.
Fee couldn't help the cry that wrenched from her throat as she stumbled back.
The murmur of voices next door shut off.
Fear pricked along her arms and down her back. She felt as if she'd just attracted a lot of unwanted attention.
“You need to get out of here. I locked them in, but they've climbed into the air filtration tunnels.” The voice came again, right in her ear, and a flash of memory came back to her. A drone, something clutched in it's tiny clamp, fitting something into her ear.
An earpiece.
She wasn't hallucinating and hearing strange voices. Someone was talking to her via a comm system.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“I'm——”
A body fell through the ceiling, landing on the trolley full of medical instruments next to her bed and then bouncing off in a small puff of dust and shattered white ceiling tiles.
“Run! Run, run, run.” The panic in the voice was catching, and Fee spun on her heel, raced for what she hoped was the door out.
It didn't open automatically, and she spun again, not wanting to have her back to whoever had crashed into the room.
“You have to hit the white light on the left of the door to open it,” the voice hissed.
She just had time to realize that it was the same as the system on the Illium, and lunge for the button, when a Tecran rose up, covered in black grime, white dust, and bits of ceiling, and pointed something at her.
“Stop.”
Fee lifted her hands slowly. Tried to see what was being pointed at her. It looked like a pen.
She'd been shot twice by a shockgun, and she weighed up whether she should risk being shot at by something else.
“Who are you?” She decided to stall a little. Try and work out what the heck was going on.
The Tecran frowned at her, and she realized she'd spoken in English, b
ecause the voice in her ear had spoken in English, and it had slipped her into the mode.
“Who are you?” she said again, this time in Garmman.
“What are you doing back here?” The Tecran's Garmman was rusty and he rubbed his side as he spoke. Fee was surprised he was standing at all. He'd hit the trolley really hard.
“That's one of Doctor Gi's assistants, Har Bega,” the voice whispered to her. “He's the one who kept you sedated when they abducted you from Earth.”
Fee knew her face went slack, because Bega tipped his head quizzically to the side.
“This is the ship that abducted me?” She kept her voice hushed, because if she didn't, she would scream.
“The ship didn't abduct you, the people in it did.” The voice in her ear was fierce.
Shouts erupted from the room next door, and Bega whipped his head around, too fast to be human. More like a bird of prey.
He shouted something back in Tecran.
“He's telling them he'll let them out now. He'll need to punch in a code. While he's busy with that, run.”
On cue, Bega sidled over to the door that seemed to connect to the room beyond, and Fee saw a small keypad embedded in the wall.
She had no qualm about following Earpiece Guy's advice. He spoke her language, which in itself was a huge deal, and he wanted her out of there. She'd come to the same conclusion.
And, almost depressingly, once again she had nothing to lose.
“Don't move.” Bega had positioned himself right next to the keypad, and he waved the pen thing at her again.
“First, tell me why.” She may never get another chance to ask, and she really wanted to know.
“Why what?”
“Why did you take me? What's wrong with you people?”
Bega blinked, his big eyes widening a little. “We . . .” He trailed off without answering, and Fee had the feeling he couldn't. He didn't know.
She was talking to Mickey Mouse, not Walt Disney.
“Who brought you here?” Bega pointed the pen at her again. “You're supposed to be at the facility already.”
“Someone called Cy.” She watched his face, and thought she could detect confusion and a little relief.
Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) Page 12