Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2)

by Michelle Diener

  He wasn't even sure it had been worth their while. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd said, but it had sounded to his ears like stream of consciousness crap, rather than any useful information.

  The store below had been closed when the Vutrovian had brought him in earlier, and both he and his guard clearly heard the door below open and close, and harsh, angry voices.

  The guard moved toward the door they'd left open, which led out to a landing and the stairs to the store below.

  Hal was watching him, and saw the expression of panic and then rage that crossed his face as someone came up the stairs.

  “Are you insane?” The Balcoan spoke in Garmman, the words almost too guttural to understand.

  “You think there will be any mercy for us now, whatever we do?” It was the Vutrovian. “We follow through or we will have two sides after us. Is that what you want? Besides, we aren't the only ones who know the Tecran want her dead. I just managed to get her back from a Vanad.”

  The Balcoan stood, blocking the door for another defiant moment, and then stepped back. He looked sick.

  Hal tried to sit when he saw who the Vutrovian was pushing through the door. He hoped for a single beat that he was back in the grip of the togrut, that she wasn't really here, but then the bed dipped as she sat beside him. Blocking him from the rest of the room, he realized.

  He forced himself to look, and saw that she still had her reflector bracelet on.

  “We don't have any togrut left,” the Balcoan said, eyes on Fiona.

  “We don't need her to talk. We just need proof that we had her and we killed her.”

  Fiona pretended not to understand, and Hal saw both men took that at face value.

  She leaned over him, stroking his hair back from his face, and put her lips near his ear. “Are there any more, or is it just the two up here and one below?” She used Grih.

  “More,” he managed to say. “Maybe out.”

  “Quiet.” The Vutrovian took a threatening step toward her. “You say your name and who you are,” he reached over to a shelf near the door and picked up a small lens.

  They'd probably recorded him when they gave him the togrut, Hal realized. And they wanted Fiona's details before they killed her. Proof they had the right person.

  “I don't understand,” Fiona spoke in slow, broken Garmman. Then she switched to her own language, and babbled away, sounding more and more excited.

  She was playing them. Playing them the way she'd played Tak for months.

  She understood all too well how an orange was perceived.

  He'd seen the tight, controlled way she'd dealt with Chel's rudeness this morning, and wished he'd been more forceful with his commander. He thought there was time, that they'd see what and who she was and be as dazzled as he, but he would no longer tolerate a situation where she was disrespected as a matter of course.

  Although someone respected her enough to let her put her life at risk to save him.

  He looked forward to having a conversation with that person, if they got out of here alive.

  * * *

  It was going to be up to Fee to do this alone.

  The Illium's crew should have stormed the building by now if her lens and microphone were working.

  As comms to Sazo were obviously down, so, most likely, was everything else.

  From the street below, she heard someone shout, and she broke off the rendition she was giving them of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch. Imogen had inspired her, and besides, looking at Hal, it was clear this lot wouldn't flinch at torturing some answers out of her.

  There was a gray cast to his skin and she forced herself to concentrate on getting them the hell out, because if she looked at Hal too much, she might just fall apart.

  The Balcoan moved over to the window to see what was happening, and the Vutrovian watched him.

  She took her chance, grabbing the pillow out from under Hal's head and gently covering his face with it.

  She reached under her left sleeve as the Balcoan turned to her, shockgun raised, a frown on his face, and buried her own face in the pillow as she pointed the light-gun between him and the Vutrovian and pressed the button.

  He must have gotten off a shot by reflex, because she heard it over the sharp, breathless cry he let out.

  She lifted her thumb off the button, raised her head and saw both the Vutrovian and the Balcoan were down. She had no idea if the ricochet had got him or whether his fall had put him out of the line of fire.

  As she lifted the pillow off of Hal's face, she couldn't find it in her to care.

  Hal had turned his head to the wall, and the effort it took him to turn it back made her clench her fists.

  She slid the light-gun into her sleeve and ran to the window, stepping over the Balcoan to get there.

  Two men had been forced to the ground by black-clad Larga Ways guards, and a small team from the Illium stood near the store's door, armed and ready.

  She pushed the window open, and six shockguns pointed her way. “Hal and I are up here. Please hurry.”

  She sat beside him while she waited, not moving when the door below was battered open, when shouts and orders were barked out.

  “They're coming. They'll get you to Jasa as soon as they can.” She said it over and over, gently stroking his hair, frightened to her core at his condition.

  Rial was the first one into the room, and she stood and shielded Hal in one smooth movement.

  Rial brought himself up short at the sight of her, his gaze going to the two men at her feet.

  The Balcoan was completely still, so perhaps he had been hit with the ricochet, while the Vutrovian was moaning in faint, hoarse bursts of pain.

  She stepped aside, so he could see Hal.

  “He needs help. I don't know what they did to him.”

  “Togrut,” Hal whispered.

  Rial was a medic, she remembered. The one who'd fixed her up on the Fasbe, what felt like years ago. He winced at whatever Hal said.

  “I've only heard what it does, never seen it.” He crouched beside Hal and Fee saw he had a bag slung over his shoulder. He started taking things out, pressing things onto Hal's skin.

  The rest of the team arrived, and for a minute, the room was too full.

  “Space,” Rial snarled, and then the two spies were hauled off, and it was only herself, Rial and a soldier setting up what looked like a hovering stretcher.

  “Will he be okay?” She watched Rial and his helper lift Hal onto the stretcher and then maneuver it to the door.

  “Maybe. But we need to hurry.” He jogged out the room, one hand holding the stretcher, and she was left staring at the empty landing, listening to the sound of their boots as they ran down the stairs.

  She was being shut out, she realized. Perhaps not on purpose, but she didn't fit anywhere on the Illium, didn't even have a room there anymore.

  She ran down after them and found they had already disappeared.

  A group of Balcoan guards stood just outside, and they all turned to watch her as she stepped out onto the street.

  “Fiona Russell?” The man who approached her had the warm brown skin and silver eyes of the majority of the inhabitants of Larga Ways.

  She nodded.

  “Tean Lee. I'm the station chief.” He gave a formal Grihan bow, which she returned.

  “I seem to have lost my ride,” she said, trying to smile. “Do you know where they've taken Captain Vakeri?”

  “I've been asked to watch over you for a bit by Commander Chel,” Lee told her, and she thought there was some satisfaction in his tone. “Captain Vakeri has been taken to the Illium for safety reasons.”

  It made sense. And she didn't want them to slow down for anything, she was glad they had rushed him off, even if it meant she was being fobbed off again. She just wished she had the right to go with him.

  “My office isn't far from here.” Lee gestured with his arm and she fell into step with him.

  There was a str
ange crackle in her right ear again, and she rubbed it. The ear with the earpiece from Sazo was absolutely dead. “Do you know why Sazo is still offline?”

  He shot her a look. “The whole of Larga Ways is a dead zone. No one can use their comms.”

  “Does anyone know why?”

  Tean Lee gave a hollow laugh. “Given what's been happening here since the Illium arrived, I'm not ruling anything out.”

  42

  Fee sat on the couch in Tean Lee's office and stared at her boots. After a brief struggle with herself, she decided she was too tired to care, pulled them off and lay down.

  She'd given her statement, Tean Lee taking her back almost three days to when she'd first been abducted by Cy.

  Her information about the Vanad and his tiny basement apartment had gotten the station chief all excited, and he'd rushed off, telling her to make herself at home.

  Every now and then, she tapped her earpiece and called Sazo's name, but although she could see him hovering above the way station through the big window of Lee's office, the comms were obviously still down. To the left of Sazo, the edge of the Illium was just visible.

  It still hurt that they had kicked her off. She didn't buy the reasons Chel had given. He'd just wanted to get her away from Hal.

  She kept thinking of Hal, gray and shaking, and she wanted—— needed——to know how he was doing.

  Chel would hardly refuse Sazo's runner entry into the Illium's launch bay. She wasn't living there anymore, but she could visit, couldn't she?

  And if she didn't go now, say her goodbyes, when would she get the chance?

  She sat up, slid her feet back in her boots, and walked out.

  There were no guards outside the door, and she guessed they thought her safe enough at security headquarters.

  She took a tube down to the ground floor, and nodded to the guards at the entrance.

  They'd seen her come in with Lee, and they let her out with a polite nod back.

  The events earlier in the day must have shaken the tiny population of the way station, because the streets were definitely emptier than they had been.

  She supposed the Vanad could still be out there, looking for her, but his bolthole was uncovered, and she'd only pretended to be stunned last time because she'd wanted to be taken. He'd find it a lot harder to get hold of her again and the chance of having to deal with him wasn't enough to keep her from trying to get to Hal.

  She'd made it all the way to Sazo's runner when an explosion rumbled like a volcano, shaking the very floor beneath her feet.

  The metal sang as she turned to look, saw the flash of white light and had to shield her eyes.

  The gel dome at her eye level wobbled and Fee suddenly remembered she was on a massive, floating space platform. That a breach would mean death to everyone here.

  She tapped the door of the runner, but it was as dead as everything else here. The guards standing at the dock entrance were running to get into the nearest vessel, and she tapped the door again, then dug out her encryptor and held it in a white-knuckled fist.

  “Please work.” She tapped it, and dived through the door as it slid open.

  It closed behind her before she could offer the guards sanctuary, but she'd hear them if they knocked, and there had been plenty of other vessels for them to get into before hers.

  “Sazo?” Nothing.

  She didn't know how to fly this, and even if she did, she didn't know if she could even get it started without Sazo's help.

  Eazi's handheld was sitting on the console where she'd left it, and she started it up and opened the draw where she'd put the crystal, pulled it over her head.

  “Eazi, you're right here. That makes me think you and I should be able to talk, even with a dead zone. Please wake up. Something terrible's happened. You need to wake up.”

  Her ear crackled again, just like it had when she'd been in the Vanad's apartment. “Hello? Eazi, are you there?”

  She looked down at the handheld, frustrated that she didn't know what to do with it to make a connection with him.

  The runner bumped against the dock, as if it were floating on water, rather than hovering in space, and she ran to the door in panic, used the encryptor to open up and look out.

  The dome looked strange and air swirled around her. The way station was leaking.

  Up above, beyond the dome, she saw runners and small fighter craft launching from the Illium and from Sazo's Class 5. Probably sending vessels to the way station to help evacuate.

  She stepped back and the door closed again, and she realized the crackle in her ear hadn't shut off.

  “Fiona?” Her name ripped through her, so loud she tried to claw the earpiece out, whimpering when she couldn't get hold of it.

  “Too loud, too loud.” She barely managed to get the words out.

  “Sorry.” Eazi whispered, but even that hurt.

  “Still too loud.”

  He was silent for a long moment.

  “Loud or not, I'm really glad to hear your voice,” she told him, suddenly afraid she'd scared him off.

  “How is this?” He spoke softly, but the volume was right this time.

  “Good.” She swallowed hard. “Very good.”

  She suddenly felt a lot less alone.

  “Do you know how I'm talking to you?”

  “I think through the handheld you left with me on the Fasbe. Sazo said it was the best way to reach you, because the drone's still out in the desert and he thinks Cy's runner and the one you were using were destroyed when they blew . . .” Did she want to remind him? Did he even remember?

  “When they blew up my Class 5.” He sounded thoughtful. “When I woke up it was like I was floating in total darkness. I couldn't tell up from down, and I've never felt that way before. But now that you've said handheld, I think I know where I am.”

  The screen of the handheld flared and Fee touched a finger to it. A line ran around her fingertip, lengthening until it was a spinning circle.

  “It's nice to have you back.” She coughed away the tears that were clogging her throat. “But unfortunately we're in big trouble. There was an explosion in Larga Ways and it's breached the dome. The Illium and Sazo are sending runners to evacuate, but I don't see how they can get everyone in time.”

  “Why can't I connect with Sazo?”

  “There's a dead zone. It's been in place since a little earlier, when I got grabbed by . . .” Fee frowned. “I'm not getting too caught up in thinking it's all about me if I say the dead zone settled in when someone grabbed me, am I?”

  “Well, that's what I did when I had you grabbed.”

  “Could this be another Class 5? Using the Vanad to abduct me, and creating the dead zone so Sazo couldn't help me?” It was just about possible. There were two Class 5s left, after all.

  “I think the dead zone helped me recover more quickly. It was like the shock of silence bothered me.”

  “I heard a crackle in my ear just after the dead zone settled in, so I think you're right. But none of this matters unless we can work out how to fix the dome.”

  “I was able to get into the Larga Ways systems before I arranged for Cy to grab you. That's how I pulled off the snatch. I know the way in.”

  She looked down at the handheld screen, but the symbols on the screen were flashing too fast for her to read them.

  “There isn't just a dead zone.” Eazi's voice was almost reverent. “Whoever killed access to the comms has done something to the way station’s commands and security. There is nothing to break into, it’s an open door. The dome needs an instruction from the main system to tell it to meld together where it's broken. But there is no instruction to send.”

  “We could give it the instruction.” Fee sucked in a breath. “Well, you could.”

  “I could, except the comms are still down and I'll need time to set them up again.”

  “So we connect in physically?” Fee asked him. “Is there a cable connection, or is that too low-tech for this place
?”

  “Not a cable,” Eazi's voice rose in excitement. “But a side by side connection, that would work. You'd have to get quite close.”

  “Using what?” She ran to the small, recessed cabinet and opened it, looked at the oxygen masks on offer.

  “The handheld will work.” Despite the situation, there was excitement in his voice. “Fiona, all the operational software is gone. If a Class 5 did this, it wasn't to infiltrate Larga Ways, it was to create as much chaos as possible and prevent the way station from recovering.”

  Fee pulled out a mask. “How am I going to get over to the gel dome? The dock stops a good ten meters from the edge of it.”

  She touched another panel, and saw an array of shockguns and some things that looked like crossbows. She picked one up, lifted the handheld so the lens could see it. “What's this?”

  “It's a magnetic grapple. That could work. If you aim at a metal beam that forms the dome structure, you could swing across from the dock.”

  He gave her a rundown on how to work it, and as soon as she had it, she pulled the oxygen mask over her head, shoved the handheld down the front of her shirt to keep her hands free and touched the encryptor to the panel.

  The wind was stronger now, so she had to fight to run toward the end of the dock.

  She heard a shout behind her, but she didn't dare look back, it was taking everything she had to keep the grapple in her arms and her weight forward.

  Her hair whipped around her face, stinging her cheeks, and she nearly fell as a runner from the Illium came through the gel wall to her left, the air swirling in a dangerous eddy before it went back to howling past her.

  She didn't go right to the end. She was afraid she'd fall off. She braced her legs apart, leaning into the gale, and fired the grapple.

  The wind took it and tossed it to the right and then back at her, and she crouched as it soared over her head and then fell back onto the dock with a clang, the magnetic field locking it in place.

  She turned, touched the button she hoped would release the magnet, and gave a shout of triumph when it did. She winched it in, crouching down on hands and knees to give herself some stability.