by EJ Fisch
Despite the way he’d treated her, she’d allowed him to teach her, to give her nostium infusions every six years, to walk her through the process of designing her own kytara, but never had she considered using her skills for any cause but her own. Gamon stood there watching her, jaw set, clearly upset but trying hard not to show it. Based on the conversation she’d overheard, it sounded as though he had other plans for her.
“It’s just time I choose my own path,” Ziva said. That much was true.
Gamon took hold of her jaw and tilted her head upward, forcing her to look him in the eye. But when he spoke, his voice was full of desperation rather than anger. “You have no future here. Come with me to Forus. There’s a new Resistance hideout there, and they’re trying to develop a new nostium formula. As a Haphezian, you’d be an invaluable asset. Come put your talents to good use and help us make a difference. I’ve spent twelve years creating the perfect warrior; don’t tell me it was all for nothing.”
So he’d had an agenda after all. Ziva wondered if he’d had it since the day they’d met. Maybe it didn’t really matter. “You didn’t create me, Jak,” she growled. “I don’t belong to you, and I certainly don’t belong to your precious Resistance. I’m not coming with you, and if you can’t accept that, I might just have to spread the word that a Nosti has been hiding out here all these years.”
“Is that a threat?”
“What do you think?”
Gamon glared down at her for a moment before fishing his communicator out of his pocket. “Fine,” he muttered, holding the device to his ear and striding out of the room. The door slammed behind him.
Ziva felt her pulse quicken and glanced up to the hook on the wall. The last of the bag’s contents were currently sliding through the tube and into her veins. She waited a few more seconds before easing the thick needle out of her arm and throwing it aside. A thin stream of foamy blood began to ooze from the swollen injection site, but she paid it no mind as she tip toed to the door and once more lowered her eye to the spy hole. Her vision swam for a moment as her brain continued processing the chemicals that had just been introduced to it, but soon she saw a clear picture of Gamon standing at the top of the stairs just as he had been before.
“We’ve got a problem,” she heard him say.
Well, he wasn’t wrong, though Ziva guessed they each had their own definitions of what exactly the problem was. The Resistance had tried many times to recruit Haphezians into their ranks – she kicked herself for not realizing that this had all just been another attempt to do that. She still had the upper hand in the situation though; she doubted Gamon would turn her in or try to kill her while there was still a possibility he could take her to Forus. She pictured herself being sedated and taken there against her will, then being brainwashed and forced to fight with the other Nosti. She shivered, though whether it was a result of nerves or the nostium, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Ziva turned and surveyed the room. She’d packed everything of importance already and could easily just grab her backpack and go. She had a small pistol, but ranged weapons were typically useless against a skilled Nosti who could pull a gun from the shooter’s grasp or even alter the path of the bullet or plasma bolt mid-flight. She wished desperately for her kytara, which was currently buried in a strongbox at the location in the forest where she met Gamon for training.
A sudden realization hit her like a smack in the face. If she walked out of this apartment – regardless of whether she went to turn Gamon in – the man could easily go to their secret meeting place and retrieve that strongbox. A kytara with her fingerprints on it would be damning evidence that the authorities wouldn’t question, and she had no way to prove that Gamon was just as guilty as she was. She could always sneak away and retrieve the strongbox first, but that would give Gamon the opportunity to rat her out and then slip away, never to be heard from again. Leaving him unattended simply wasn’t an option, and she swallowed as she contemplated what needed to be done.
She’d killed a man once. It was an old homeless man, drunken into a dazed stupor, but she’d done it all the same. He’d witnessed her use Nostia to move a large piece of scrap metal as she’d searched an abandoned alleyway for materials with which to build her kytara. It had been a foolish, careless move on her part, using her abilities anywhere near a public place. Part of her guessed that he was probably too wasted to remember what he’d seen, but another part knew that she couldn’t take any chances. There’d been a certain necessity about it, a sense of self-preservation that had helped her convince herself that she’d done the right thing. That same feeling fueled her as she went to her bag and pulled out her gun.
Ziva crept back to the door and placed her ear to it, unable to hear Gamon outside any longer. After several seconds of silence, she risked another look through the spy hole and shuddered when she saw the empty stairwell.
The squeak of a floorboard was the only warning she had before something dark passed in front of the hole and the door flew inward, striking her hard in the face. She shook her head and threw her weight against the door in return, hearing the satisfying sound of a body hitting the floor. She flung the door open and took aim, but ducked out of the way to avoid Gamon’s communicator as it flew toward her head. The familiar metallic sound of a kytara engaging echoed through the stairwell, and his nasty serrated blade suddenly filled her vision.
She turned her head away, but the tip of the sword still managed to find her face. Searing pain shot through her left cheek and temple, and she found herself blinded by the blood that streamed from the gash. She wanted to scream, but the only sound that came out was a choked gasp.
Ziva took several staggering steps back into the room and opened fire in Gamon’s general direction, using her mind to hurl any nearby objects toward the door. The fog in her head had nearly dissipated, but enough remained to make her stumble and the gun slipped from her grasp. She squeezed her bloody eye shut and caught herself on the dining table, dropping to the floor and rolling out of the way before Gamon could pull the contents of the kitchen shelf down on top of her. Rising up on one knee, she seized the hem of the filthy curtain covering the room’s main window and tore it down, taking up the metal curtain rod with both hands.
Gamon’s blade whistled through the air behind her and she spun to meet it, blocking his blow with the rod and sweeping his arm away. He whirled and came at her again, bringing his kytara down against her makeshift weapon with a two-handed grip. Ziva could feel the rod give a bit; she dove to one side and brought it up hard against the backs of his knees, sending him to the floor as well.
The kytara clattered to the ground a short distance away and Ziva reached for it, but Gamon had an invisible grip on it first and called it back to his own hand. She threw herself at him, swatting the weapon away just before it met his fingers. She slammed her elbow down against his nose and mouth, satisfied by the sound of cartilage and teeth breaking, and reached for the kytara. The sound of a switchblade filled her ears, and she knew Gamon had drawn another weapon.
In that instant, Ziva’s hand closed around the sword’s grip and she swung it around behind her, slicing through Gamon’s wrist and severing the hand that was about to plunge a knife into her femoral artery. She wrenched her body around and lifted the kytara above her head, reveling in the horrified look in his eyes just before she thrust it into his chest.
The blade pierced his heart and it was over.
-19-
Payvan residence
Noro, Haphez
Ziva awoke for the fourth time from a fitful sleep and blinked several times, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the bedroom. Staying up until all hours with the day’s events on her mind was definitely a contributing factor, but it was also outrageously hot in the room and every little sound made her jumpy. But Jayden, Solaris, and the heat weren’t what had awakened her this time.
She wasn’t sure how she had even heard it. Even now, she
could barely hear it over the sound of her own breathing, much less while sleeping. It was just one of those things…
There! There it was again, barely audible. It was the sound of something sharp scraping against a smooth surface somewhere in the house. There was a certain consistency to it, a gentle, arching movement that ruled out the possibility that it was a twig or branch scratching a window. Ryon kept all the shrubs and tree branches trimmed anyway, partly to protect the glass and also so nobody would become paranoid every time a breeze came up. No, this was definitely not a branch. Ziva had used enough glass cutters in her life to know what one sounded like.
She sat up, struggling to get her feet untangled from the bed covers, and took her gun from the nightstand. She moved quietly to the door and slid it open far enough to poke her head out. The hallway and living room were dark and silent, and she slipped through the narrow opening, listening. The scraping had stopped.
Ziva paused for a moment to observe the two shadows that stood in the living room, silhouetted against the dim moonlight that streamed in from outside. It was Aroska and Ryon, both standing motionless and armed with pistols as well. They looked wide awake and also appeared to be listening. Ziva glanced at the sofa where Aroska had been using the cushions and a blanket and she scowled at him. “What are you still doing here?” she mouthed, though she doubted he could see her clearly.
Rather than reply, he waved his hand under his nose, motioning for her to smell the air. Sure enough, she picked up the scent that he had indicated – a strange, damp, salty smell. It seemed vaguely familiar. She gripped her pistol tighter and glided noiselessly over to Aroska and Ryon. She was about to ask how long the two men had been listening when a thump and a muffled groan came from Jayden’s room.
The three of them burst forward to the bedroom door, weapons trained on it. Ziva flattened herself against the wall while Aroska waited with his hand poised over the controls and Ryon crouched to take the low angle. Ziva took a deep breath and nodded, signaling for Aroska to hit the button.
The door slid open and Ziva swung around, pistol aimed into the darkness. The salty smell rushed into her nostrils and her mind made the connection just as Ryon activated the lights: Sardon. The soldier was attempting to drag an unconscious Jayden out through a large hole cut in the bedroom window. A syringe lay on the floor beside the glass cutter.
“Drop the kid!” Ziva commanded, taking several steps forward.
The Sardon appeared to either be ignoring her completely or he hadn’t understood. He continued dragging Jayden, no longer bothering to be stealthy. With his free hand he began groping for the gun that rested in the holster on his hip.
Ziva squeezed off a shot, but the plasma bolt that hit him squarely in the chest wasn’t hers. Her shot had struck just above his left knee, exactly as she’d intended. This time she wasn’t going to let the intruder get away before gaining some information. The fatal shot, though, had come from behind her, from Aroska’s weapon.
“Hold your fire!” she ordered, knocking his gun down. She rushed forward and pulled the Sardon away from Jayden, rolling him over onto his back. He was clutching his chest, gasping for air, and blood was dribbling from his mouth.
“What do you want?” Ziva shouted, shaking him, patting his face, trying to get him to focus. “Why are you here?”
The soldier’s reptilian eyes were glazed over and he grabbed Ziva’s arm, mumbling something inaudible.
She looked down to where his fingers were closed around her wrist and noticed the black Solaris star against his leathery gray skin. There was a smaller star just above it, different than what she had seen on the insurgents from the forest and the man at HSP.
“Cach kem bola?” she repeated in Sardon, shaking him again.
“Tro… trosashina,” he wheezed.
“Transmission?” Ziva cried. “What transmission?”
He looked up at her longingly, as if he might actually tell her if he could. His fingers slowly slid off her arm as his head rolled limply to one side.
“Come on, come on!” Ziva shouted, shaking him violently. When he didn’t respond, she checked for a pulse, and, finding none, stood up to face Ryon and Aroska. “Gone,” she said.
They had pulled Jayden back up onto the bed and were covering him with a blanket. “He’ll be fine,” Aroska announced, tossing her the syringe. “Axonyte. He’ll just be out of it for awhile.”
“What were you thinking?” Ziva asked abruptly, barely paying attention to what he’d just said. “That’s the second Solaris operative that you’ve taken down before we’ve had a chance to question him!”
“So you’d rather they just kill Jayden?” Aroska retorted.
“Think about it, Tarbic. The inside man at HSP was leading him out of the building. This one was using Axonyte, a sedative. They don’t want him dead. There’s something else going on.” She looked down at the dead Sardon. “Something involving a transmission.”
-20-
Tranyi River District
Noro, Haphez
If one looked closely enough at the horizon, it might have looked like the sky was beginning to brighten with the first light of dawn. Of course, sometimes when you had been waiting long enough for something, the mind would begin to play tricks on you, and you would think you saw something that wasn’t really there. So maybe the sun would be rising soon, maybe it wouldn’t. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he did know that his partner had been gone for nearly two hours. Peering through his spotting scope, he swept the area again and still saw no sign of anyone approaching. Even with an ally who could remotely disable Payvan’s security system, breaking into the house had been a slow process. But two hours was just too long, no matter how slowly someone moved.
Suddenly, several lights came on inside the house, and yellow floodlights illuminated the yard outside. He quickly shrunk back into the shadows, restraining himself from cursing out loud. That was it – the mission was a no-go.
“It’s off,” he hissed into his communicator. “He’s gone. Mission failure.”
-21-
East Sun
Fringe space
Dane Bothum swore and hurled his comm unit across the room. This was twice today that Jayden Saiffe had slipped through his fingers.
“You’re completely sure?” he growled at the translucent hologram standing on the communication pad across the room.
“Positive. One of the soldiers I sent just confirmed it.”
“You’ve lost too many of my men today.”
The hologram scoffed. “Those were my men in the forest. I had no idea HSP was going to show up.”
“It was also your responsibility to make sure they didn’t,” Bothum returned.
“The tip was from an anonymous civilian, out of my hands.”
“And yet your man was able to alter the transmission logs to trick HSP into thinking the governor wasn’t due to arrive until today. Was a simple civilian tip so much more difficult to deal with?”
“Look, as far as we know, the kid hasn’t told them anything about what he found. Otherwise, they’d be there knocking down your doors.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Bothum mused. “Why hasn’t he told them?” He took a moment to look at the hologram. “We have to get him before he does.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I may have a better idea. I promised you Lieutenant Tarbic three months ago, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t deliver. He is currently working with one Ziva Payvan, who would serve as a very fine specimen for your program. Rather than go to Jayden Saiffe, we’ll bring him to us. Use the father to bait the son. Tarbic and Payvan are on protection detail for Saiffe – if he comes, we’ll get them too.”
Bothum ran his thumb across his eyebrow. This was certainly an irresistible offer. He’d heard stories about Ziva Payvan – indeed, she could be perfect. Capturing her would more than make up for the shortfall three months earlier. “You’re sure HSP doesn’t know where we are?”
“I said as
far as I know. I’m coming back to you this afternoon. They’ve got the Alpha field ops team working here and they’re closing in faster than I expected.”
“I suppose your cover was never going to last forever,” Bothum agreed. “This had better work, Saun.”
-22-
9 years ago
Noro, Haphez
When Ziva awakened a bit later, it took her a moment to realize why her left eye seemed to be stuck shut. The scent of blood was overpowering and she immediately recalled everything that had happened. She didn’t remember passing out, but she wasn’t surprised that she had. Using Nostia took its toll on both the mind and body, and when combined with the stress of Gamon’s betrayal, the encounter had exhausted her. She’d gladly take the academy’s brutal training camp over this any day.
She carefully wiped the back of her hand across her face and found that the blood was still warm and sticky – she hadn’t been out for long, maybe a couple of minutes. The gash beside her eye stung like crazy when she gently probed it with her fingers, and she could feel the way the serrated blade had shredded her skin. It was going to leave a mark.
Someone would no doubt be along shortly to see what all the commotion was about. HSP had probably been dispatched to the building after the shots had been fired. Ziva hauled herself to her feet and swept her gaze around the room, taking in the damage. Gamon remained on the floor with his own kytara still embedded in his chest. He was a Nosti who had attempted to kidnap her and recruit her into the Resistance. Yes, that’s what had happened. He’d stalked her and followed her to the apartment, and then he’d attacked when she’d threatened to go to the police. There was a measure of truth to it all, which would make the story all the more plausible.