“It can't be coincidence, can it?” he asked her softly. “Them being here at just the right time?”
“No.” Sinjin's voice was grim. “Someone may think I'd spend my time focusing on more immediate issues, and saving my own backside from recriminations about how this could even have happened, but they would be wrong. I'm going to find out who was behind those girls being at the ruins, and when I do . . .” She drew a deep breath “. . . I'll find who's putting my whole planet at risk.”
5
Nyha watched Veld stride in and out of the canteen, directing the first batch of hostages off Cepi with a smug glee she found false. It was as if he was playing a game, or had studied a few space pirate stories and was throwing himself into the role of the villain.
No one had spoken to or approached her and the girls since they'd been separated from the other hostages, although she could see the archeological team and its support staff through the massive open canteen doors leading to the outside. They stood in small groups, shocked and frightened, and in some cases furious.
Some of the artifacts had been catalogued and removed weeks ago, but at least half of them still remained, and that was a loss she was sure Professor Faro would not take well.
It was no surprise he was in the first group to be ferried away. If anyone was going to foment dissent, it was Faro.
Garett hadn't been taken, though. Nyha could see him standing mulishly to one side, staring around him with narrowed eyes.
The girls had initially sat in silence, shocked and scared, but with nothing happening they'd started talking softly to each other while Nyha kept watch.
She'd arranged the chairs so they sat behind her in a tight circle, tucked into a corner of the room, and she put herself between them and everyone else.
The canteen was the biggest single room on Cepi—whoever had created the curved buildings with their smooth black surfaces had either been much smaller than the people of the Verdant String, or they'd liked small, enclosed spaces—but even so, Nyha felt too close to the laz guns and the hard-faced hostage-takers gathered in the room, and needed a barrier between them and the girls.
She wanted to talk to Mak, let him know they'd been taken, but the canteen was too open, and while no one had spoken to them since they'd been moved here, she was under no illusion they weren't being watched.
She tensed, then curled her hands into fists on the table when the young hostage-taker who'd fought with Faro sauntered over to them.
“Boss says you need to join him over there.” He pointed to Veld, who'd come back in to the canteen and was setting up a scanner on one of the tables near the doors.
Nyha stood and looked over her shoulder at the girls. “I'll just be—”
“Quiet!” The guard reached out and slapped her, and she turned back to him, jaw slack with surprise, the sting of his handprint on her cheek throbbing in time with her heartbeat.
The crack of sound seemed to act like a switch, plunging the canteen into silence.
He smirked at her, and in his face, just for a moment, she saw the smuggler who had terrorized her on her journey from Halatia to Arkhor fifteen years ago.
It was extraordinary.
She'd spent her life since then, since she was twelve, coming to terms with what had happened to her, to her family, to everyone she knew. The greed and corruption that had led to her being assaulted by a group of criminals, and the moral bankruptcy that had put her in the position in the first place.
She had been saved, she made herself remember. She had been rescued and given a home, and the girls behind her, infants at the time, had been too young to know the terror and the fear of the smuggler ships.
But if they had, they would see this asshole was of the same breed.
A hand landed on the smirker's shoulder, heavy enough to make him wince and dip down on one side.
“What did you just do?” The voice was surprisingly neutral.
Nyha looked up, and her gaze clashed with Veld's.
“Put her in her place.” The smirker tried to move to one side, get out of the hold, and winced when it tightened.
“I'm about to get Dr. Bartali here to speak to the cordon officials. I'm going to tell them that if they do as I say, Dr. Bartali and her girls won't be harmed. And now, I'm going to have to do it with a massive red mark on her cheek.”
The smirker cried out and buckled, trying to escape downward now that he'd realized escaping to the side was not an option.
“I was only following the creed,” he said, voice high and over-loud in the still-silent room.
“The creed?” Veld's voice deepened.
“The ruins are ours to command, and none can naysay us when we stand upon them.” He spoke in quick, sharp bursts, breathing hard.
“What's your name?” Veld asked him.
“Hamand.” He got it out on a squeak. “It's an honor to be chosen—”
“Cors.” Veld interrupted, keeping his grip on Hamand's shoulder, but turning to look behind him. One of the big, older men in the group hunched his shoulders.
“He slipped through.”
“Deal with him.” Veld pivoted Hamand around and shoved him in Cors' direction.
Cors sighed and moved forward, faster and quieter than Nyha would have guessed from someone of his size. He grabbed Hamand by the neck and dragged him out the room.
Nyha watched the other members of the group as they avoided Veld's gaze, looking down, or at the retreating backs of Cors and Hamand.
“Are you all right?” Veld turned to her, and she lifted a brow.
“No. If you're concerned about my well-being, let me and the girls go.”
Veld smirked, his eyes gleaming with humor. “I'm afraid that isn't possible. Come, I want you to talk to the cordon authorities.”
“What do you want me to tell them?”
“The truth.” Veld put a hand on her arm and pulled her toward him, but he wasn't rough and his grip was light enough.
“Nyha . . .” Vik's voice wobbled.
Nyha turned, and saw all the girls were out of their seats. There was a readiness about them, the Kal Maroo training she'd forced on them over the years apparent in the way they stood, ready to spring.
She gave a tiny shake of her head so they would stand down, and tried to smile. “Sit. It's okay. I'm just going to where they've set up the scanners.”
They lowered themselves slowly, and Nyha saw they were all focused on her face.
She brushed her fingertips over her cheek and forced herself not to wince.
“Time's wasting, Dr. Bartali.” Veld started walking to the table where his crew had set up the comm equipment.
She followed him, took the seat he held out for her.
“I want them to see your hair.” He leaned over her and lifted the hair that hung down her back and flicked it over her shoulders so it hung on either side of her face.
She looked up at him, confused, but he'd turned to watch the pick-up as it lifted up and disappeared into the sky above, carrying away the first set of hostages.
About two thirds of the Cepi staff where still left standing in the docking bay. Of everyone they could have chosen to speak to the authorities, why choose her? Professor Faro would surely have been a better spokesperson. He was known throughout the Verdant String as public interest had focused on Cepi in the months before it was scheduled to be blown up.
She rubbed a lock of her hair between thumb and forefinger, looked down at it, and it came to her.
Anger rose up in her, so hot, so searing, she had to blink away scalding tears of emotion.
They wanted her blue hair tumbling around her. They wanted her to look as Halatian as possible.
They were going to use a fifteen year old tragedy to manipulate the Verdant String into not daring to even attempt a rescue, in case either she or the girls were injured.
She'd had cause over the years to resent some of the baggage attached to her arrival in Arkhor. She was aware of the difficulty
some had dealing with Halatians, as the guilt made them uncomfortable and edgy.
But those people were the exception.
Her adopted home wasn't perfect, but it was hers now, and she loved it.
That her personal trauma, and the terrible arrival into the world that the girls behind her had endured, was being used by Veld and his crew for their own purposes burned through any fears and doubts she'd had before.
They would not get away with this. She'd do whatever she could to make sure of it.
“Ready?” Veld asked her.
She looked up at him, trying hard to appear calm.
“I still don't know what you want me to do.”
“I'm going to connect to the Cepi cordon battleship. You're going to confirm that you and your girls are our hostages. That is all.”
Nyha raised her shoulders. “All right.”
But it wasn't. It wasn't all right at all.
6
Arkhor Special Forces provided top-of-the-line equipment, but Erenn couldn't connect to a single one of the scanners they'd placed in the ruins when they'd first been assigned to Cepi.
“Jamming us. Well, not us specifically. My guess is they have a top-end general jammer. Something cutting edge.” Erenn closed down her equipment in disgust.
“So high-end space pirates.” The way they'd come in, shut the site down with minimum casualties, minimum effort, Mak had thought high-end pro from the start. “Everyone we've seen involved in the takeover so far is Verdant String.”
“Might be misdirection.” Goojie helped Erenn move her equipment up against the wall, out of the way. “But it makes sense to look close to home first.”
“It might be one of the Breakaways,” Fren said. “Could be they're a for-profit operation.”
“There are only two Breakaways, though.” Vasouvy was pacing the small space. “And while they may be all about profit, the Breakaway planets aren't at Verdant String level of tech, not by a long way.”
“Not overall, they're not. But a few elites at the very top might have the capacity. That's why they broke away, remember, because they don't like the egalitarian ways of the Verdant String. They want to be able to accumulate as much wealth as they can.” Fren leaned back against the wall, ankles and arms crossed.
“Then we have to ask what someone would gain from taking over Cepi before it's destroyed. We know their crew is slick and smart. Using the Halatians is a stroke of genius, but it also tells us something.” Mak lowered himself to the floor of their tiny cave, stretched his legs out in front of him.
“What does it tell us?” Yari joined him, leaning back against the rock.
“That whatever they want to do here, they need time and space to do it. This isn't a fast and dirty mission, they need breathing room, that's why they're using the Halatians as hostages. So they'll be left alone for at least a while.”
“Good point.” Vasouvy was thoughtful. “But then it begs the question, is it just luck that the Halatians are here?”
“Vice-admiral Sinjin and I wondered the same.” Mak stretched his neck from side to side, loosening stiff muscles.
“You think the Halatians are in on it? They're kids, aren't they?” Fren sounded shocked.
Mak shook his head. “No. But I think someone made sure they were invited up here and convinced them to come. And I'd like to know who that was.”
“An inside job?” Goojie lifted bushy brows.
“Got to be. And not just here on Cepi. Someone on Arkhor, too.”
Vasouvy made a strangled sound. “One of ours?”
“They used an Arkhor ship to come in, and you can't tell me someone on Arkhor didn't have to approve Dr. Bartali's visit with those girls so close to Cepi being destroyed.”
His team were silent as they absorbed that.
“If we're asking this, someone else higher up will ask it, too. Surely anyone who's involved would know they'd be caught?” Erenn slid down the rock wall and rested her head on her knees.
“Maybe they think they're too clever. Or maybe they've been offered massive wealth on a Breakaway and are about to disappear.” Mak let that sink in, too.
Then he pulled himself to his feet. “All right, we need to know what's going on in those ruins. If they've set up a jammer that blocks scanner feed, then we'll have to see for ourselves.” He picked up his pack. “Vasouvy, Yari and I will find a way in, and Fren, Goojie and Erenn, you set up at equidistant points just outside the perimeter of the ruins. Erenn, you get the job of relaying our reports to Vice-admiral Sinjin.”
They nodded agreement and packed up, pulling on their helmets and leaving the heavier equipment in the cave.
Mak took the lead, slipping through the shadows the strange, reflected light that Burno, Kalastoni's largest moon, cast over the terrain, his uniform set to high reflection mode again.
He would be almost impossible to spot with the naked eye, and heat sensors would also struggle to pick him up.
They reached the closest wall that surrounded the ruin.
If it was a wall at all.
There was a huge gap between it and the other two tall, curved structures that encircled the central building, so it couldn't have been built to keep anyone in or out.
Erenn, Goojie and Fren split off from the back. They'd work their way around to find posts from which they could watch for movement and hold themselves ready in case Mak or his team needed help.
Mak kept moving forward, scanning for any sign of life.
The ground between the wall-like structure and the main building was open and exposed.
He was betting on the hostage-takers having a small, tight crew, with not a lot of spare eyes to watch for infiltration. The pick-up they'd hijacked was small, and there could only be so many of them. They'd have hostages to watch, some would be ferrying the hostages they were giving up to the cordon authorities, and others would surely be doing whatever it was they had come here to do.
He and his team should be safe.
Time seemed to stretch with every breath, every step, and then his hand touched the wall, and he was pressed up against it, waiting for Vasouvy and Yari.
They hit the wall seconds after him, and then followed as he slid along it and then stopped when he came to the first entrance to the building.
He took a moment to appreciate that there wasn't a single door in the ruins. It made getting in a lot easier.
He crouched, extended his arm, palm out, and curved it around the doorway, using his glove as a mirror. He transmitted the reflection mode image to the inside of his visor.
They were clear.
He carefully stepped in, still in a low crouch.
“Hello, Mak. Are you there?” The whisper in his ear, low and urgent, forced him to put a hand out on the ground to steady himself.
Vasouvy touched his arm in query.
“Bartali just made contact,” he whispered. He switched on the comm set. “I'm here.”
He thought she sighed with relief. Would she do that if she was being coerced to speak to him?
“I was worried they'd herded you up with the others.” Her voice was down to a whisper.
He frowned for a moment, then remembered he'd told her he was part of the security team. She'd probably been wondering which of the hostages was him.
“You didn't ask after me, did you?”
“No.” She breathed it out, almost inaudible, and he felt a frisson of . . . something shoot through him.
He forced himself to focus on his surroundings. “Dr. Bartali, can you hold on a few minutes?”
“Nyha,” she said. “My name is Nyha, and yes.”
He switched the comm to silent. He sensed rather than saw that Yari and Vasouvy were crouched beside him.
“You think she's been compromised?” Yari asked.
“No. I think she's trying to keep her conversation as quiet as she can. Yari, I want you to find a way to see the docking bay, let us all know what's happening there. Vasouvy, go up to the comm stat
ion, see if Catano left us any clues, and when you're done, find where they've set up their command center.”
“What are you going to do?” Yari stood—Mak couldn't see him, but he sensed the movement.
“I'm going to find one of the hostage-takers to follow and work out what they're up to. And we're all going to look for where they've put the hostages.” He stood himself, and waited for the other two to head out before he touched his comm set again. “I'm back. Can you talk?”
There was nothing but silence.
“Nyha?” He moved forward as he spoke, orienting himself.
The whole team had been inside the ruins a few times since they'd first arrived, using it as infiltration practice. The rules were they couldn't get caught, and they had to leave a message for Catano.
Everyone had managed it twice without being noticed, and Mak was glad of it now. They had a good working knowledge of the building.
“Nyha, can you hear me?”
Still nothing.
Mak tried to picture what she looked like. His impression had been that she was slim and short, with blue hair pulled back off her face. He'd been with Erenn in their bunker watching the scanners when she'd arrived for her visit, but he'd been more interested in how the security crew had done their job than in the Halatians at the time. Now he wished he'd paid more attention to her.
He came to the open, central area with its constantly moving spiral that rose up through the full height of the building. It presented him with numerous choices on where to go.
Yari would have gone left, toward the launch bay, and Vasouvy would have headed up to Catano's comm room, so Mak went right, keeping close to the walls.
He heard the footsteps ringing on the strange black stone of the floor long before the hostage-takers turned the corner and made their way past him.
He'd stepped into the shadow thrown by a strange, sharply angled wall which jutted out into the wide passage, and knew he was completely invisible.
There were two guards in the lead, then Nyha and her girls in a tight bunch in the middle, and then two guards behind. They were all armed with laz guns, which were illegal for anyone not in the military. They still wore the dark blue uniforms of the Arkhor flight crew, but over it they wore utility belts with restraints hanging from them, and personal breathers.
Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology Page 41