‘You’re looking very cosy back there,’ Wilks commented insinuatingly as he came level with the pair, preventing the continuation of their conversation. He'd had his eye on them for a little while and was certain something was being cooked up between the pair. Melanie was not known for being friendly with comrades, let alone strangers, not that it was worth his neck to say as much outright.
‘Just passing the time,’ Duncan told him pleasantly. ‘But, you know, you could always give me the guided tour. Make things more interesting.’ Duncan grinned at him.
‘I reckon this’ll make things more interesting,’ Wilks replied drawing his gun. ‘Now then, I suggest you get to walking in front.’ He nudged Duncan forward in front of himself and Melanie.
‘You can never be too careful with pirates,’ he added to Melanie, ‘treacherous bastards the lot of them.’
‘Now let’s be fair here!’ Duncan cried as he turned to face them and spread his arms wide. ‘And, besides, what happened to our welcoming host?’ he teased.
‘You fell for an act, mate,’ Wilks smirked.
‘And you call me treacherous!’ Duncan exclaimed with a grin of his own before he turned back to face the direction in which he was walking and began whistling a jaunty tune.
Rather helpfully, Duncan’s little three hundred and sixty degree turn gave him a complete sweep of the entire area they were walking through, which was more than enough to get his bearings and notice a few things too. For instance, Wilks was well known in these parts – everyone who saw them scurried in the opposite direction as inconspicuously as they could. But it was the second thing that was far more interesting: the pickpockets were back.
Chapter Twenty-five
‘Well, at least he’s started talking now,’ Blue commented dryly.
‘Perhaps I should have included a wish for him to give us some positive indications,’ Simon added, not at all happy with what they’d managed to glean so far.
‘Of what’s going on or that everything’s okay?’
‘Either would’ve been nice!’
‘Well, we know that Wilks is definitely not on our side and Melanie is caught between the two,’ Zhe told them. ‘And that the captain is still alive,’ she added last to the list.
Simon frowned at her. ‘I get the Wilks bit, but Melanie is on Wilks’ side, sure as anything, and Duncan hasn’t said anything about the captain being alive.’
‘Duncan is trying to sound out the possibility of Melanie as an ally and… well, he used the present tense when he talked about serving under a good captain,’ Zhe explained her reasoning, but privately wondered if she'd gone a step too far. With the captain, she knew she could say anything to him and it would be okay, but with Simon she still wasn’t sure. She still remembered the fear of hearing he ran a “chop shop” and his fondness for amputations. It did look like these were jokes between friends, but she really wasn’t sure. He was too ambiguous with all his book learning, but then rough manners – he was a man of contradictions.
‘I suppose he did, didn’t he?’ Blue agreed. ‘She’d make a good ally too, but do you reckon he can manage that?’ Blue cut into her musings bringing her back to the present.
Zhe shrugged, ‘I guess he seems to think so, but, with Wilks around, it’s going to be tricky.’
‘Especially now he’s split them up,’ Simon agreed, nodding at the monitors, drawing all of their attention back to their current task.
‘Oh hell.’ Blue dropped his boots off the desk suddenly and leaned in closer to the monitors.
‘What?’ Simon and Zhe peered closer at the monitor’s trying to detect Blue’s cause for alarm.
‘There! Monitor five, upper-right corner.’
‘They’re being shadowed.’
‘Quite literally, lass; whoever they are, they’re keeping to the shadows,’ Blue agreed.
‘You would think they’d light their territories better,’ Simon commented, causing the other two to look at him curiously. ‘Well, any shadows and the hiding places they provide aid their enemies better than they aid them; they have protection within the walls of any of the buildings in their own ward, and they don’t have to rely on shadows to cloak themselves,’ he explained.
Blue just looked at him in disbelief – the things they had to explain to this boy and then he comes out with something like that. Full of contradictions he was, Blue decided, not realising how close his thoughts mirrored Zhe’s earlier ones on the man.
‘Are you sure we shouldn’t warn Duncan?’ Zhe asked hesitantly, watching the shadow closely.
‘It’s still too risky.’ Blue shook his head; he hated being the one to make the decisions. He purposely avoided getting into positions where he had to; it was why he had remained an engineer all his life. Cause and effect were easy to work out with machines, but people just made everything too damn complicated.
‘At least Wilks is the more obvious target for any attack, with Duncan doing his best to appear the least threatening possible.’
‘True, and, you never know, this could be exactly what he needs – a nice tidy distraction,’ Simon thought aloud, his thoughts swinging from pessimism to optimism in an instant; the trouble was that they settled far too often on pessimism.
***
Duncan could have done with some of Simon’s optimism himself at that particular moment. He continued with his jaunty façade, but his mind was racing. He needed a plan and quickly, before they got too close to the Coelacanth, but each one he made was more hopeless than the last. He had made and discarded a dozen such hopeless schemes since leaving Kristoff’s office. While his thoughts raced on in vain, his instincts kicked in a moment before the attack came.
He spun around and caught the arm of his attacker scant inches before it made contact with the back of his neck; using their momentum, he flipped his assailant onto their back and drew his gun in the same movement. He looked up to see Wilks out cold on the ground and Melanie upright but bleeding from a cut on her temple, as she faced off against her own masked attacker. That left the third unaccounted for.
The cocking of a gun behind his head solved that little mystery.
‘Raise your hands slowly,’ a voice told them, ‘both of you.’
With no other alternative in sight, both Melanie and Duncan did as they were told. The remaining two attackers efficiently searched them for weapons and removed those they found before one stepped back to cover the two of them while the other saw to Wilks, who remained unconscious throughout.
‘Comm. links,’ the same voice stated from behind Duncan, but when no one moved it changed its statement to an order, ‘You will surrender your comm. links.’
‘Don’t have any,’ Duncan lied.
A lie that resulted in the butt of the gun coming down across the back of his head. The blow, while not enough to knock him off his feet, caused him to stagger forward before he regained his footing.
‘Your comm. links,’ the voice repeated, ‘or she will start cutting through your ears until she finds them.’ Melanie’s attacker stepped forward at this moment, her hunting knife glinting threateningly.
Melanie locked eyes with Duncan before reaching up slowly towards her ear and removing her own comm. link. Duncan betrayed none of the surprise he felt at realising that she too had one, but he berated himself internally for not having thought of it earlier as he reached for his own.
Even with all three of them now unarmed and without communication, their attackers did not relax. ‘You will carry him,’ the voice instructed and Duncan assumed he pointed to Wilks. Duncan did toy with the idea of misunderstanding the order and attempting to carry his previous attacker, who was slowly regaining his feet, but decided such a reckless move would net him nothing more than another injury which he could well do without.
Between the two of them, Duncan and Melanie managed to half carry and half drag Wilks along, ea
ch with one of his arms across their shoulders. Their attackers gave no care to their need for a slower pace to manage the burden, but hustled them down two passageways and into one of the buildings.
The whole episode from attack to retreat to safety took only a few minutes, which was just a moment less than it took for Kristoff’s reinforcements to arrive.
***
While Duncan was busy marching towards his abduction, Ben was left to keep himself, Ash and Sophie alive until Duncan returned, which, as he knew nothing of the abduction, he hoped would be soon.
‘You know, while we’re all here there are a few questions I have for you,’ Kristoff said as he relaxed on the settee.
‘I would have thought a man like you had all the answers already, what with your excellent informants,’ Daniels responded, still laying across the arm chair.
‘Come now, Captain. There’s no need for that tone. We are, after all, partners.’
‘Really? You have a mighty strange way of treating your partners.’
‘Perhaps, but you still have all your weapons and are not tied up – two points that I believe you yourself used to prove the point you weren’t prisoners.’ Kristoff smirked; he knew that the gesture of allowing Ben and his crew to keep their weapons was an empty one. With a member of his crew missing, and a small army between him and his precious floating relic they both knew that the weapons would be next to useless. There was no way they could shoot their way out of here and, for all his needling, Kristoff trusted the fact that Ben was smart enough not to risk his crew’s lives for the mere pleasure of killing him.
‘Touché,’ Ben acknowledged wryly.
‘Now, what I really wanted to know, is what you did to wash up here in Abantos all those years ago?’ Kristoff continued with his questioning, not caring for the fact that his questions were unwelcome. In fact, he rather relished it.
‘I died,’ Ben said simply.
‘Ha! Don’t give me those ridiculous rumours about hell and the devil sending you back. You may be able to fool those gullible idiots out there, but not me. You’re going to have to do better than that.’ He waved contemptuously at the rest of Abantos.
‘I’m sure the other wardlords would be interested to hear your opinion of them,’ Ben stalled, but Kristoff didn’t rise to the bait, he only raised an eyebrow.
‘Really, you don’t know, do you?’ Ben said after a pause as he decided that goading would be a better tactic.
‘Would I be asking if I did?’
‘I didn’t realise it had become such a great secret.’
‘Really? Then how come your own crew don’t know?’ Kristoff shot back causing Ben to frown in confusion. ‘Oh, don’t play innocent with me. I can see them leaning in closer to hear the real story. You haven’t told them.’
Ben glanced at Sophie and Ash to see if this was true. He assumed it must be by Sophie’s slightly embarrassed look and Ash’s nonchalant shrug.
‘It would seem that you have found me out,’ Ben said, spreading his arms wide.
‘Indeed, so…’ Kristoff prompted.
‘Really there isn’t much to tell,’ Ben began his story humbly. ‘I’d had enough of the Republic and their poncy ways, so I struck back. Now, funnily enough, they didn’t take too kindly to that for some reason and tried to stick my head in a noose, which I didn’t take to. But my escape plan didn’t exactly go to plan and so I ended up washed up in Abantos with nothing.’
‘How very disappointing,’ Kristoff commented. ‘But then I thought it was the Sky Affair that led to your downfall.’ Kristoff dropped that little nugget of information slyly. ‘So why you expect me to believe that bullshit is quite beyond me, Commander Daniels.’
‘You astound me, Kristoff. You don’t want the grand legends, but you don’t want the plain truth either, so I find myself asking what do you want?’ Ben ignored Kristoff’s correct use of his former rank and his allusion to the Sky Affair; he'd be damned before he'd admit to knowing about that disaster.
‘You’re trying my patience, Daniels, and that is not a good thing.’
‘Now you’re just falling into clichés,’ Ben chided.
‘And you may just want to be careful that I’m not pushed into further clichés; doesn’t the villain of the piece usually start torturing someone the hero is fond of to get him to talk?’
Ben swallowed back his instant response and instead, with great effort, managed to plaster a grin on his face. ‘I’ve always thought that was a poor way to get information personally. How do you know it’s the truth? How do you know that they actually care about anyone else’s welfare? People, in my experience, are selfish, greedy and out to save their own skin.’ Ben spoke as if he was discussing the state of the seas not the possible torture of one of his crew members. ‘But, still, it’s not as bad as that old, “you’re about to die so I’ll tell you the whole plan” cliché… that is, unless, of course, you feel like indulging in that one?
‘You bluff; your care for your crew is legendary.’
‘As legendary as my bargain with the devil?’ Ben asked lightly. ‘Or perhaps as legendary as the Sky Affair?’
‘Sir!’ Kristoff was prevented from pursuing Ben’s apparent slip up, as a soldier burst into the room.
‘What is it?’ he snapped.
‘Sorry sir, but they’ve been taken.’
‘Who have?’
‘Graves, Wilks and the prisoner, sir.’
‘What?’ he demanded for a second time.
‘They were just coming to the edge of Ward Twenty-two, still within our area, when suddenly three masked attackers appeared and took them,’ the soldier explained.
Kristoff stalked over to his desk, hit a few of the controls with more force than they really needed and then turned to the picture of the Land he'd been admiring earlier, which transformed into a viewing screen.
Everyone in the room turned to stare at the screen and watched the attack unfold.
‘Anything you wish to tell me, Daniels,’ Kristoff asked Ben insinuatingly after the attack was complete and all six of them had entered the building, disappearing from the camera’s view.
‘I would think that, as it’s your ward, you would know who they were,’ Ben shot back. ‘After all, I haven’t been here in a decade.’
‘Have you run a check on them?’ Kristoff demanded of the soldier.
‘Their masks conceal too much to get a positive match, sir. We traced them to that building but it’s as if they disappeared after entering it. My squad pulled the place apart.’
‘And just where were your squad when the attack was happening?’ Kristoff did not wait for his excuses, but continued issuing new orders. ‘You will find them; I want sweeps started from that point outwards in all directions. I want soldiers in the passageways and eyes on the live feeds. Get to it!’
‘Daniels, you had better not have had a hand in this,’ he warned, after the soldier saluted and left.
‘What would I gain?’ Ben stood staring at the image of Duncan being led away at gun point. It was not a good image.
Chapter Twenty-six
Duncan unceremoniously dropped Wilks when it at last became apparent that they had reached their destination, and Melanie, not being able to support the extra weight by herself, let go as well, which resulted in Wilks landing in a rather undignified heap on the floor. Duncan had hoped that they wouldn’t have had to carry Wilks very far once they’d entered the building, but it seemed that it was merely a front to disguise a series of passageways under it. They were led through a veritable maze of interconnecting passages that their attackers navigated with ease, but then they didn’t have a body to carry.
Under the guise of stooping to catch his breath, Duncan made a quick survey of the room they’d stopped in. It was smaller than Kristoff’s office, but still large enough to fit ten people around the table that sat to the
left of the door, with room for gawkers to the right. It was in this second half of the room that they had been deposited. The guard in charge, Voice as Duncan had taken to calling him in his head, had perched himself on the table’s edge and watched them closely. Of the other two, Knife remained by the door and the other used the opposite wall as a leaning post. Together with the two guards on the other side of the door, that made five guards in total against the two of them, if Melanie would fight with him. Not particularly terrible odds, but it was the other factors that also put Duncan at a disadvantage. Not only was he not sure his ally was indeed his ally, he was also at a loss as to where exactly they were in Abantos now; the only thing he was even remotely certain of was that they had moved out of Kristoff’s territory, but into whose he couldn’t tell. Yet even that issue was also secondary to the fact that he didn’t know how to get out of these tunnels and back up into Abantos proper.
Just when Duncan had made up his mind to do something stupid, a series of knocks sounded on the door. The guard at the door, Knife (as Duncan thought of her), responded in kind with her own series of knocks; different to the first. The door was then opened from the other side and in stepped a woman. Duncan watched as the guards in the room all straightened and nodded in respect to her, a gesture that she returned before coming to focus all her attention on him.
Duncan straightened and stared back, waiting for her to make the first move – it was her show after all.
‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ she asked, already sure of the answer.
Duncan paused for a moment, ‘That depends; will it seriously harm my chances of surviving if I don’t?’
She tipped her head back and laughed at his remark. ‘It seems where the years have taken their toll on me they have left you completely unchanged.’
Duncan merely grinned back not saying anything more, unsure what her reply actually meant for his chances of survival. He didn’t recall making any friends last time he was here, so this wasn’t looking good. He guessed that Melanie had come to the same conclusion, as he felt her tense beside him.
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