by C. G. Hatton
NG nodded to the guild personnel and looked down, seeing the leader of his captors for the first time. A dark switch in his mind flipped.
“Who’s paying you?” he asked quietly.
The leader looked up defiantly. “I’ll tell you nothing.”
He heard himself say softly, “You don’t need to.”
He grabbed the man by the throat.
His fingers connected with warm flesh and there was a panicked snap of horrified tension as the guy tried to flinch away. Futile resistance as it took the merest instant to pierce the mind and negate any instinct to fight.
The mercenary’s head slumped to the side.
NG wasted no time then. It was as easy as accessing a data file. He extracted, viciously and ruthlessly, every last vestige of information from the deepest recesses of the mind he was invading, taking the guy’s most deep-rooted memories from the moment of birth to this very instant in a rush of subconscious transfer that was almost overwhelming. He trampled through the man’s head with no regard for the damage he was causing, receptors and neurons sparking and dying in his wake.
He felt Martinez behind him, watching.
He didn’t waver. These people had taken a contract to capture him but it was more than that. Whoever had hired them was targeting the guild.
The four guards were cold, pitiless pillars of support on either side, watching unmoved.
In the space of seconds, all that was left of the man was sufficient brain activity to keep the basic biological functions operating. All the higher functions, any trace of the man that had been, were gone.
NG stepped back. “I’m done. We’re leaving.”
“What do you want us to do with them, boss?” Banks said.
He started for the door, fatigue beginning to burn in every joint and muscle. “Put him out of his misery. The others are of no interest.”
The sense of relief from the captives was almost palpable. “You’re letting us go?” asked the woman. “After what we did to you?”
He stopped and turned. “Letting you go?” he said, incredulous. “What made you think I was letting you go?”
The shots rang out as he walked away. Three more lights going out in the dark.
No one messes with the Thieves’ Guild.
It was cold outside, cold and dark. They stood in the shelter of the doorway for a moment, Banks on one side, Martinez on the other, waiting for the officer in charge of the Man’s elite unit to give them the go-ahead to make a move for the ship.
NG shivered. Someone had given him a thick combat jacket and he was still cold. Now that the drama was over, he felt a bone-deep tiredness begin to take hold as the darkness receded from his mind. It was getting hard to keep his eyes open. Martinez had fussed at the head wound but he’d shrugged her away.
He hadn’t got the answers he wanted from that mind as it crumbled beneath his touch but he’d got enough to suspect who was behind this.
Banks was talking to someone on the guild ship, fast and furious, updates on status, the sharp edge of intense focus starting to ease now they had him, safe and almost sound. There was another ship in orbit that they were tracking. He could hear the flow of intel as they communicated through the implants quite clearly even though he wasn’t in the loop.
“Get its ID,” NG muttered, trying to ignore the pain that was still pulling at the base of his skull, the nausea that was swirling knots in his stomach. Soft tissue was easy for him to manipulate and heal. Broken bones and fractures were hard work. A skull fracture with concussion was sending him sideways now the adrenaline had worn off.
Banks glanced at him. “We’re on it, boss.” He was thinking that it had been too close. Way too close.
NG could feel a sharp edge of anxiety in his two bodyguards. Martinez was staring at him. He could read from her mind that they’d been sent here expecting to be too late and that they’d find him dead. She was desperately relieved to have found him alive, wanting to get him back to the safety of the Alsatia.
He felt like he’d been caught running away from home.
He pulled the jacket tight, trying to think back and round to what had happened, how he’d screwed up badly enough to be caught that easily, and he had no idea.
He listened in as the mercenaries’ contact broke orbit and fled.
Martinez touched a protective hand to his shoulder. “Okay, we’re good to go. Let’s get you out of here.”
There was a summons to the Man’s chambers waiting for him when they docked. NG leaned his head against the wall of the private lift and closed his eyes as it took him up through the levels. He’d slept half the way back and used the rest of the time to heal, leaving the visible bruising around his eye to run its course, and concentrating whatever energy he had left down to cellular level to fix the internal damage. He hadn’t quite managed it but he’d made headway and didn’t feel quite so crap. A chewing out from the Man was the last thing he needed though. He’d made a serious mistake somewhere and it was obviously too much to hope that he might have had time to resolve this mess before the Man heard about it.
He had his hand on the elevator button for level twelve, trying to decide if he had time to go shower and change when an urgent request for attention nudged through the implant. It was official but tagged with one of the codes his staff used when they wanted to talk privately, in person. Decision made. He hit the button and rubbed a hand over his eyes, leaning back into the corner as the lift took him up.
Evelyn was waiting with a cup of hot tea for him, massively relieved to see him intact, but an uncharacteristic agitation buzzing around her that made his head ache again.
“We have a problem,” she sent straight away, tight wire through the Senson, as private as they could get.
“I know.”
She frowned.
“I’m fine,” NG said cautiously, knowing he didn’t look it and not sure why she was so fraught.
Evie bit her lip and touched his arm gently.
He read it from her mind an instant before she spoke. “Mendhel’s dead.”
Chapter 2
“He is talented,” the other commented, “very talented, I would not dispute that. I question whether he is too headstrong and yet not strong enough to be what we need.”
“He is impetuous and mischievous,” the Man replied. “He is a child, even now. Much of what he has achieved so far has been play. His only weakness is that he cares deeply. But he protects his own and can be ruthless with others. As we need. I admit, he does not yet truly comprehend how powerful he is.” He took another sip of the wine. “We underestimated the voracity with which the disparate factions in this galaxy would protect their own and take such dire offence at any threat, however ill-perceived.”
“With hindsight,” said the other, as she reached for the jug that was resting on the small table between them, “would we have considered other stratagem? Would any other strategy have had a different outcome?”
“No,” the Man said. “We have always had limited resources at our command. I stand by the guild and I stand by our decisions, however unpredictable the outcomes have proved to be.”
•
“That’s not all,” Evie said, ushering him into the office. The grief he could feel tugging deep inside her mixed with the confused disbelief that he couldn’t shake. He was tired, still hurting and still pissed that he’d been caught like that.
“What happened?” he said, digging deep to find some energy from somewhere to deal with this. He didn’t want to deal with anything. What he wanted was to crawl into a dark corner and lick his wounds alone.
She pushed him through towards the door to his quarters. “Someone killed him,” she said. “LC’s missing. We just had to rescue Hilyer from someone who shot him down and took him captive. And the Assassins have accepted a contract on you. Drink your tea.”
A hit out on him? He took a sip from the cup. It wasn’t just tea. She’d put something in it that sent a warm feeling into his joints. S
he steered him to the bathroom and started the shower running.
He started to shrug out of his shirt and turned back. “What tabs were they on?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “There’s nothing logged. They were both supposed to be here on down time. We don’t know who killed Mendhel. We don’t even know who managed to capture Hil but apparently he’s a mess. They’re bringing him in now.”
She watched as he stripped off, frowning at the bruises. “You shouldn’t have gone out alone.”
He ignored her. He’d gone out with a cast iron ID. No one should have been able to associate him with the guild.
She folded her arms. Not impressed. “Do you need to go to Medical?”
“No, I’m fine. Is this contained?” He needed to limit the dissemination of information on this.
“Yes, of course it is. Do you know who it was?” She was thinking that it couldn’t have been the Assassins’ Guild who’d got their hands on him or he’d be dead.
He kept quiet, stepping into the stream of hot water and scrubbing off the blood and dirt. He had an idea who it could have been but it wasn’t something he could let her into. No one else in the guild, with the exception of the Man himself, even knew about the threat. The Thieves’ Guild wasn’t the only organisation playing across the lines and they’d crossed swords before, with plenty of people, plenty of times. But this was an escalation. A chill settled deep inside despite the heat of the water. Mendhel Halligan was their best handler. LC Anderton and Zach Hilyer were their two best field operatives. NG rubbed a hand over his eyes. He’d been out on a routine meet and greet. Nothing he hadn’t done a thousand times before. It had checked out but his cover had been broken and someone had openly attacked him in an attempt to get to the guild’s council of elders? At the same time that someone killed Mendhel?
He turned off the shower. “I need to talk to the Man,” he said quietly.
“Yes, you do.” Evelyn said, throwing him a towel.
He caught it and wrapped it round his waist. “Is Hilyer hurt?”
“He crashed. Skye’s a mess too. Apparently Hil has amnesia. That’s why we don’t know what happened. He can’t remember.”
“Who’s bringing him in?”
“Hetherington and Wibowski.”
“Hurt badly?”
She nodded, hesitant, thinking he couldn’t ignore a summons from the Man and knowing that he was going to if she said what she was about to. She said it. “The Chief is waiting for him in the conference room with Legal. I haven’t told them yet that you’re back.”
Christ, it was tempting to leave them to deal with it but he couldn’t. Knowing the Chief as he did and knowing that Hil was hurt. “Give me a minute,” he said. “Get Media and Science in there too, total blackout, and tell them to wait for me.”
He intercepted Hilyer in the hallway. The extraction agents had reported the amnesia but they hadn’t mentioned the full extent of the injuries Hil was carrying and the fact that the kid’s Senson had been torn from his neck. Hil hadn’t been given the luxury of showering and the kid looked bruised and exhausted, eyes glassy and a haunted look on his face that matched the confusion in his mind that was making NG feel dizzy, on top of the throbbing headache.
“It’s good to have you back, Hil,” NG said softly, grasping the kid’s hand in a firm shake and using the contact to read quickly what he could and give enough healing energy to keep Hil on his feet. It wasn’t much but it was something. “We’re in the shit and I really need to know what you can remember.”
Hilyer was one of the best field operatives they’d ever handled, second only to LC right now. He was fearless. Obnoxiously arrogant was the way some people in the guild put it. But Hil could handle himself whatever was thrown at him. Except now he looked like he could pass out at any minute, standing there shivering and on the verge of going into shock. They should have taken him to Medical first.
NG shut out the pain he was picking up. It was bad enough that he had his own half-healed wounds to deal with. Being a telepathic empath was great until you were suddenly in the vicinity of a hospital case. He didn’t have much more energy to spare but he put a hand up to the back of Hil’s neck, carefully manipulating at base level to bring down the anxiety and nudging him gently into motion down the corridor.
He felt Hil calm within a few steps.
“I… they…” Hil was struggling to speak. “NG, I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything straight.” He stopped to take a breath and NG was hit by a twinge of sharp second-hand pain shooting through the ribs before he could block it again.
Hil looked up through hooded eyes. “What happened to Mendhel? Has someone told Anya?”
NG kept his face impassive. He hadn’t even thought of Mendhel’s daughter. He was struggling himself to keep track of the implications of all this. Evelyn would know where she was.
For the moment he shook his head. “We’ll go through a full debrief later. Right now I need to know whatever you can remember. You okay for this?”
They stopped at the door to the conference room. He could hear Hil screaming, ‘No’, to himself inside his head. It didn’t take much manipulation and the kid said, “Yeah,” a touch of that natural belligerence sparking back into action.
NG nodded and pushed open the door.
The section chiefs of Acquisitions, Legal, Media and Science were already in there. The total blackout he’d ordered meant no display screens and no monitoring of the meeting. This was going to be private. There were too many rumours doing the rounds already.
He steered Hilyer to a seat and took his own place, careful not to let any intrusions into his thoughts yet. The four others at the table were strong personalities – they had to be to control the four main divisions of the guild – and as much as he wanted to know what they were all thinking, he wasn’t ready for an outright assault from all four of them. He’d talk to them all separately later. None of them knew what had happened to him and he wanted to keep it that way for now.
He looked across at the huge man sitting opposite Hilyer. “Chief,” NG said, “do you want to take this up?” The Chief was a big man, one of the best they had, and as head of Acquisitions he was responsible for the handlers and the field-ops. He had a right to start this.
The Chief shook his head, placed his hands out flat on the table in front of him and leaned forward towards Hilyer. “Where the hell have you been and what the hell have you been doing?” he said coldly. Straight to the point. As calm as he was outwardly, NG had never seen the big man this distraught. They’d never lost an active handler before. And more than that, Mendhel had been a good friend to them both. It was hard to shut out raw emotions that were so close to his own.
“We get word Mendhel is dead,” the Chief was saying to Hil, “your emergency beacon yells for help and suddenly we can’t contact LC. We were hoping he was with you but obviously not. Tell me the three of you weren’t out on a tab that we didn’t know about.”
Hilyer looked confused, blood draining from his face, thinking that no one would ever take an unauthorised tab, why even say it?
It was a genuine emotion.
NG looked around the table. Legal was staring at him, a faint smile creasing the corners of her lips that deepened as he caught her eye. He could guess what she was thinking without having to delve into her mind. He definitely wasn’t ready to go there yet. She maintained the contact for a moment longer then cast her gaze over to Hilyer suddenly, a subtle change in expression. She didn’t have much respect for the way the field-ops worked – not enough discipline in her eyes.
“We’ve found evidence of a tab at Mendhel’s safe house on Earth,” she said coldly to Hil. “He was handling an assignment that had not originated from the guild. What do you know about that?”
There was silence.
NG looked back to Hilyer, looking deep inside and seeing nothing but confusion. He’d encountered people with amnesia before and it was disconcerting to share that twirling chaos o
f jarred synapses. Hil had it badly. NG broke away before the dizziness could take a hold and watched as they gave the kid a hard time, Hil looking desperately from face to face as they threw questions at him. It was difficult not to break in and rescue the kid from further interrogation but the possibility that Mendhel could have been running an illicit job with his two top field operatives was too serious to handle in any other arena.
Hil was struggling.
The Chief was done, hitting the limit of his patience with this kid who was usually one of his cocky young superstars. “Let me set this straight,” he said finally. “You left here with LC. That’s logged. It is not in dispute and don’t deny it. What the hell were you two doing?”
The complete and utter perplexity that crossed Hilyer’s mind was impossible to miss. NG couldn’t help but snap his head round to stare. They’d been assuming the amnesia had been caused by the head injuries from the crash but they hadn’t realised the extent of it. It was abundantly clear that Hil had absolutely no intact memory of the last time he’d left the Alsatia.
“You don’t remember leaving with LC,” he said quietly.
Hil looked hard pushed to find any comfort in the fact that someone believed him. It was getting harder to filter out the pain and NG was tempted then to call it, get the kid out of there and down to Medical. It took him a moment to realise that Legal was nudging for a connection through the Senson. He ignored her. It wasn’t etiquette to hold private conversations during a conference and he wasn’t sure he could handle her inside his head right now. Not aching the way it was.
She flashed him a glare and pushed a data board over, the thin display screen flickering with a not too discrete demand to allow her access.