“Good. Listen, I’ve located Rowan. In an office off a main room up here. This is a secured area. My escort had to show a pass and use a palm print to enter. The door to the office is shut. I don’t see any card slots or palm pads or code buttons, just a plain ordinary door control. Is it likely to be rigged?”
“If it’s like other military bases I’ve been on,” Jamil returned, “the answer’s no. Why bother? If you’ve got clearance that far up, you’re not the type to go around snooping through other people’s offices. My guess is the door won’t even be locked.”
“I hope like hell you’re right.” Xris switched comm channels. “Harry, I’ve located Rowan and I’m going in.”
“Xris!” Harry was whispering, sounded tense. “Security’s sending someone up—”
“Take it easy, Harry. It’s under control. I only need five minutes. Out.”
Xris had to pause a moment to stop shaking. The green CCA-2 flared bright, blurred around the edges. He started walking and it seemed to him that he had been making this walk, taking these steps, ever since that moment when he first woke up in the hospital and knew that his life was over.
He checked the needle in his thumb, made sure the mechanism was working. He reached the door, hit the control.
It slid silently open.
A woman sat in a swivel chair at a desk. Her back was turned to Xris. All he could see was a tumbled mass of shoulder-length curly brown hair. Above her swirled a mathematical model. She was staring at it intently, using a computer holographic pointer to make changes in the algorithm.
Xris cast a quick glance around, searching for electronic eyes, security cams.
Nothing. The room was essentially barren, devoid of life. No photographs of family, a lover, not even a pet. No green plants to relieve the gray sterility of her surroundings. Nothing except computer equipment. But all of it was impressive. Expensive state-of-the-art machines, the very latest in technology.
A little warning went off in Xris’s mind. This was some fancy setup for a mere clerk.
He stepped inside the room. A touch of the control and the door slid shut behind him. The woman never moved, didn’t appear to have noticed his entry.
The way she was sitting, the tilt of the head, the very movement of the hand—all familiar. So very familiar.
Tiny alarm beeps went off in Xris’s arm. He ignored them.
“Rowan.” He tried to say it twice, but his voice failed. The third time it came out strong. “Rowan. Dalin Rowan.”
The hand holding the pen froze in midair. The woman didn’t move for a long moment, the space of a thudding heartbeat. Then, slowly, taking care to make no sudden motions, she put the pen down on the desk.
“Hello, Xris,” she said quietly, and turned around.
Her face contorted in pain when she saw him. Xris kept tight control of his own face, determined to show no emotion, not even the fury that was suddenly engulfing him like white-hot flame.
He looked for Dalin Rowan in the woman’s features and he found him. Rowan was there, although it looked as if someone had taken an eraser and rubbed off all the sharp, masculine edges, made them rounded, blurred. But the eyes were the same: intelligent, a bit red from overuse, and—oddly—sad and resigned.
“You know me,” Xris said and his voice grated harshly. “And I know you. So I guess we both know why I’m here.”
Rowan nodded, sighed. Her hands were folded calmly in her lap. “I’ve been expecting you. Or them. The Hung.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know which would find me first.”
She smiled, lopsided. “Ironic. All these years, I’ve listened for the footstep behind my back. When it finally comes, I don’t hear it”
Rowan looked up at him steadily. “I’m glad it was you, Xris. Glad and . . . strangely enough .. . relieved.” She glanced around. “It’s all over at last.”
Xris was at a loss. This was certainly not what he’d expected. He’d been imagining the fear. The look of guilt. The frantic plea for understanding, for life—which he would take grim pleasure in denying. He hadn’t expected resignation, sadness. It was starting to unnerve him.
He brought up the mental picture of Ito.
“You’re going to die, Rowan.” Xris held up his metal hand, wiggled the thumb. “There’s a needle here. When I touch you, it’ll inject poison into you. It’s a pity,” he added, working himself back into his comfortable anger, “but you won’t feel any pain. Not like Ito. Not like me. You’ll be unconscious for about an hour—long enough for me to leave—and then you’ll die. Of unknown causes. This leaves no trace, and there’s no antidote.”
Rowan listened to all this gravely, as she once used to listen to Xris outlining a plan for a bust. When Xris was finished, she sat motionless, looking up at him. She said nothing, no word in her own defense.
Xris was becoming exasperated. “Why? Just tell me why. If you needed money that bad, you could have come to me. I didn’t have much, but what was mine was yours. You knew that! Damn it, Rowan, we were friends! Why didn’t you talk to me?”
And now her gaze lowered. Her hands trembled. She shook her head. The long brown hair fell forward, hiding her features. Still, she said nothing.
“I see. Maybe you needed more than we had. So you set me and Ito up.” Xris grunted. “I guess I should be glad—”
“Xris!” It was Harry’s voice. “Security’s in FCWing! They’re looking for you!”
“Hey! Olicien Pest Control!” The shout came from outside the closed CCA-2 door. “Are you up inside the ducts there? Come down here a minute.”
Xris didn’t bother to respond. He was cold, brisk, efficient. He took a step toward Rowan, metal hand reaching for the woman’s arm.
“You can scream for help,” he said, “but it won’t do you a damn bit of good. Sorry it has to end this way between us, Rowan—”
If she had screamed, jumped up, rushed him, she would have been dead. Rowan remained seated, watching him with those calm, sad eyes. She held perfectly still, and that probably saved her.
That and her next words.
“Joker’s wild, Xris. For God’s sake, get out of there. Joker’s wild.”
He heard, once again, a frantic and unrecognizable voice:
All Deltas! Joker’s wild! For God’s sake, get out of there! Joker’s wild! Joker’s wild!
Xris paused, his hand not four centimeters from the woman’s arm. “Yeah? The abort code for the mission. What’s that supposed to prove. You knew it. Armstrong would have given it to you.”
But Armstrong wouldn’t have given Rowan that little added cry of panic that had echoed in Xris’s mind during the terrible days of pain that followed. That wasn’t part of the abort code.
For God’s sake .. .
Rowan stood up, moved nearer, courting death. “They told you I killed the crew, stole the shuttle, left you and Ito to die. If I had betrayed you, why would I have transmitted the abort code? And I was the one to transmit it that day.”
“Bug man!” The voice outside the door was starting to sound impatient, suspicious. “Are you up there? Harrison, go on up and check.”
Xris stared at this woman who was Rowan and who wasn’t Rowan. Something inside him gave way—a dam bursting, a seething cauldron boiling over, a festering sore draining. He wanted to believe. Dear God, he wanted to believe!
But Rowan was smart, creative. He—she’d had all these years to think up a clever lie.
“We have to talk, Xris!” Rowan put her hand on his arm, the deadly arm. “You have to hear what I found out. You have to let me explain!”
“He’s not up here, Captain,” came the report from outside the door.
“Security! Intruder alert. Unauthorized personnel at large in FCWing.”
Alarms sounded.
The cyborg’s metal hand twitched. He moved it back, away from Rowan. Then he nodded once, abruptly.
She touched the control. The door slid open.
“Captain. Call off the alert. The gentlema
n’s here—”
“Jamil!” Harry was shouting into the comm. “I can’t raise Xris! All hell’s breaking loose! You guys head for the plane. I’m going after him.”
“Harry, don’t—” Xris began, then stopped.
All he could hear over the commlink was Harry shouting, someone else swearing, glass breaking, and lasgun fire.
And then Harry’s coram went dead.
Chapter 17
The prayer of the chicken hawk does not get him the chicken.
Proverb, Swahili
Xris’s hand—his good hand, flesh-and-blood—closed over Rowan’s arm. He jerked her back into the room, hit the door controls. The door slid shut.
“Is there another way out of here?”
“Yes,” Rowan answered, short and sweet, not wasting time for explanations. Just like the old days.
Could he trust her—like the old days?
He’d soon find out.
His leg compartment flipped out. He pulled out his lasgun, fired, effectively soldered the door control.
“Where’s the other door?”
“At the opposite end of the room, to your left.”
“I see it. Does it lock?”
“Yes, but the guards could override it.”
“I’m sure you could fix it if you wanted to. And believe me, you want to.” Xris aimed his lasgun at her.
Rowan smiled, shrugged, and sat down at the computer. “There,” she said after a moment’s work. “We can get out. No one else can get in. Not without plastic explosives,” she added.
“Funny.” Xris snorted.
Outside, he could hear voices: “Security, I’ve found the intruder. He’s in FCWing, Major Mohini’s office. The door controls have been frozen. We can’t get inside.”
A phone on Rowan’s desk began to buzz insistently. She looked at Xris.
He picked it up.
“What we have now,” Xris told whoever was on the other end, “is a hostage situation. I’ve captured your major. I’m armed. One move to break in here and your major’s dead.”
He hung up, ripped the phone off the desk, tossed it—wires dangling—into a corner. “Derek Sagan was right,” Xris muttered to himself. “Shoot—don’t talk. I’d have saved myself a hell of a lot of trouble if I’d just gone ahead and shot her!”
He heard the captain repeatedly calling, “Security!”; then, “I can’t raise anyone. Something’s wrong. One of you men go check central security ops.”
Harry must be doing something constructive. Xris hoped his pilot was not getting himself killed at the same time.
“Jamil.” Xris was back on the comm. “What’s going on down there?”
“Xris!” Jamil sounded relieved. “Where—”
“Answer the question!” Xris snapped.
“We made it to the spaceplane two jumps ahead of Commander Drake and a squad of Marines. We’re okay, but they’re sure as hell not going to let us fly out of here.”
“Hang tight,” Xris growled. “I’m working on it.”
Like hell he was. Trapped inside a computer room with his onetime best friend who had maybe tried to kill him, while half the Marines on the space station were lined up outside waiting for him.
“I can help,” Rowan offered. “Just tell me the setup.”
Xris hesitated, studied her. Logic told him not to trust this woman; she was battling for her life. But it was Rowan talking and they were together again, their backs against it, outnumbered, everything going wrong that could go wrong. And in the brown eyes that were Rowan’s eyes was the same bright excitement of long ago—the delight in the challenge, the exhilaration of the adrenal rush, the fun of beating the odds.
Besides, when it came down to it, what choice did he—or his team—have?
“Remember this,” said Xris, lifting his metal hand, wiggling the thumb with its deadly needle. “If you let me down, so help me, I’ll—”
He didn’t finish. It wasn’t necessary.
“I understand,” Rowan said quietly.
“Here’s the deal. I’ve got a man stuck in security. I’ve got three more men trapped inside our spaceplane, which is located on loading dock 28L. None of my men is armed. They have orders not to kill.”
Rowan raised her eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”
All was quiet outside the door—too quiet.
“No one dies,” Xris said. “We’re in enough trouble already.”
“You bet you are,” Rowan agreed. She was seated at the computer, fingers dancing across the keyboard. “See if you can raise your man in security.”
“You’re coming with me, you know,” Xris told her. “I want to hear that explanation of yours.” Then he was back on the comm. “Harry, Harry, can you read me?”
Rowan paused, looked earnestly at him. “Taking me would put you in one hell of a lot of trouble, Xris. More than you could ever imagine.”
“You’re coming with me,” Xris said with finality. “Either you come or I blow your cozy little setup here sky-high. I’m sure the Navy would be real interested in knowing that once upon a time you used to pee standing up.”
Rowan looked at him a moment longer, then—unexpectedly— she chuckled, low in her throat. Still laughing, she went back to work.
Xris was back on the comm. “Harry! Harry, come in—”
“Harry here! Xris, are you all right?”
“Never better,” Xris answered wryly. “What the hell is going on down there?”
“Security had a make on you. So I knocked ‘em out. Like you said.”
“Then what was all that racket? The hypno-spray—”
“Hypno-spray? Jeez, Xris. I forgot all about the damn hypno-spray. I just used my fists. Oh, uh, and I’ve got a lasgun now. A couple of ‘em, in fact.”
“Damn it, Harry—”
“They’ll be okay, Xris. When they come to.”
“Is that your man?” Rowan interrupted.
“Unless someone makes me a better offer,” Xris returned bitterly.
“Can he reach the spaceplane from his location in three minutes?”
Xris relayed the message, received an answer in the affirmative. “But they’ve probably got the plane guarded,” Xris added.
“Maybe one or two Marines posted outside the door to the loading dock.” Rowan shrugged. “After all, they know you’re not going anywhere.”
“But we are, aren’t we, old friend?”
“Yes, old friend,” Rowan replied, with that lopsided smile. “We are. Tell your man to move out. He’s got three minutes, starting now.”
Xris gave the order.
Rowan, breathing a sigh, sat back in her chair.
“What do we do now?” Xris asked.
“Wait.”
Xris pulled a twist out of his pocket, lit it.
“Smoking’s not allowed,” said Rowan, amused.
“Add it to the list of charges.” Xris eyed her. “I never thought I’d say this, but you don’t make a bad-looking woman. Just what is it we’re waiting for?”
“An enemy attack,” Rowan returned gravely.
“Fortuitous timing.”
“Yes, isn’t it. Ah!”
The deck shook beneath Xris’s feet, nearly knocking him over. He grabbed hold of the edge of Rowan’s desk.
Rowan stood up. “That will be the enemy now. Coming?”
Red lights were flashing, Klaxons sounding.
Rowan negotiated her way through the maze of computer equipment, heading for the side door. Xris, lasgun in his hand, followed.
“What was that?”
“I set a plasma venting system to overload, caused an explosion on Level CC, Section 2. Don’t worry. No one was around. That section’s been abandoned for years. Unused living space. The hull’s been breached—according to the computer—by an enemy Corasian torpedo.”
“Let me guess: There are no Corasians within a zillion light-years of this place.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Rowan returned calmly. “But
according to the computer, there’s an entire enemy fleet out there, complete with mother ships.”
“But the scanners—”
“Shut down.”
“Hell, all anyone has to do is look outside the damn window. They’ll know we’re not under enemy attack.”
“True,” said Rowan. “But it’s going to take them at least two hours to convince the computer otherwise. In the meantime, all the blast doors have been shut, which means most people are trapped in their own areas. The Marines are under orders to report to their combat stations—if they can get to them.”
“But they’ll be able to manually override the controls.”
“Not anymore.” Rowan had reached the door. She looked at Xris. “There’ll be guards outside waiting for us.”
Xris waved the lasgun. “You’re my hostage, remember? Just a minute. If the blast doors are shut, how do we get out?”
“We have manual security override,” Rowan answered. She had her hand on the controls, but she didn’t open them. “You wouldn’t have asked me such questions in the old days, Xris.”
“Ito hadn’t been blown into a fine red mist in the old days. And I wasn’t a machine. I’m letting you live, Rowan. Don’t ask me to trust you into the bargain.” He jammed the lasgun into her side. “Open the door. And watch what you say and do.”
She nodded, touched the controls.
The door slid open.
Five Marines, beam rifles leveled, were waiting for them out in the corridor.
Rowan raised her hands, stepped out. Xris crowded close behind her, using her body as a shield.
“I’ve got a 22-decawatt lasgun,” he told the Marines. “It’s set to fire the second the pressure of my finger relaxes. You so much as stun me and the major dies.”
“He’s not bluffing,” Rowan said swiftly. “He’s a mercenary, working for the Corasians. Part of the enemy attack force. Now, if you’ll just let us pass—”
The captain of the Marines looked uneasy. “You know we can’t do that, Major Mohini. We have standing orders to shoot you, rather than allow you to fall into enemy hands.”
Rowan glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Xris glared at her. “Why, you—”
The lights went out. The windowless corridor was suddenly, intensely, unbelievably dark.
The Knights of the Black Earth Page 19