by M. D. Cooper
Erin opened it, hoping that Anwen had given some useful info, but more worried that it was some new dire news.
‘Erin, sorry to have so much bad news. We found Max Rasner, or rather, his body. A cargo handler out at Sparta had a nasty surprise when she unpacked a crate. It wasn’t pretty. Someone had caved in Rasner’s head before tucking him away.
It looks like the crate was taken out of the warehouse by an autolift just as the racks all came down on top of you. It wasn’t logged properly, so no one checked the ship it was delivered to.
Anyway, I think you’ll agree that the list of suspected killers is just one name long.’
‘Pippa Dhami is now wanted for murder. I understand that you might want to delay arresting her to uncover more information about the missing antimatter, but please keep a close watch on her. She mustn’t be given the opportunity to kill again.
Good hunting, Tanis Richards out.’
Erin leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. The scenes at Landfall’s Excelsior Spaceport flashed through her mind. Pippa’s fight with Max, her running after him, both of them disappearing into the warehouse, the search for them, and Pippa’s reappearance.
While they were both missing, Pippa must have killed Max and hidden his body. What else had she done when no one was watching? After Erin had told her to go to meet her sister at the warehouse entrance, how long had it taken for her to arrive? Had it been during that time that Pippa hacked the security system and commanded the warehouse portage devices to push over the shelving? Or had she fixed it all up directly after killing Max? And had she intended the chaos to make it seem likely that Max had escaped and perhaps to help cover up what Pippa had done, or had Pippa been trying to kill Erin too?
Erin was now certain that when Max had run from Pippa, it was because she’d been the one to attack him, not the other way around. What had happened in the waiting room? Up until the moment Erin interviewed him, he’d thought the sabotage was an accident. While he sat and fumed, had he realized something that told him Pippa was to blame? It would be just like Max to blurt out something to accuse the engineer rather than keep his cool and tell Erin what he knew.
Erin sat up. The packet from Tanis threw a whole new light on things, though it still didn’t explain the bigger picture. Pippa really was very good at deceiving people. Erin wondered if Anwen knew the truth about her sister. From what Erin could tell, she didn’t think Anwen had any idea what Pippa had been doing, but maybe she was just as good at deception as her twin.
A shadow loomed at Erin’s side.
“This is a significant development,” Usef said.
“You can say that again,” she replied. “The worse of it is we still don’t know what Pippa’s intending to do with the extra antimatter. The most obvious possibility is that she brought it here. She came to Tyre directly after the briefing aboard the Eos. I’m guessing that the low population makes it easier to move around unseen.
“Given that she’s a murderer, should we move in on her and her crew, or should we carry on watching them? I’m worried they might have more accomplices lurking on Tyre. If someone else has access to that antimatter and they hear that Pippa and the others have been arrested, they might go to ground, and we’ll never find them or the antimatter.”
Usef’s brow lowered, and he pursed his lips. “If we rush in, they may be killed in the altercation and we may not find the antimatter. The strongest possibility is that they’ve hidden it here and are retrieving it. We should wait a little while longer.”
Erin nodded, though half her mind was on the fact that Isa had been hanging out with people who were the friends of a murderer.
She tried to contact Isa again, and then Martin, but to no avail.
The pinnace was beginning to feel like a cage. She desperately wanted to find out if Isa and Martin were OK, but there was no way to leave without disrupting the operation to stop a killer and a terrorist.
Erin bit her lip and nodded to Usef. “OK, a little while longer.”
CRYSTALS
STELLAR DATE: 03.22.8937 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Mount Ida Caverns
REGION: Tyre, New Canaan System
There was little Isa or Martin could do except wait for whoever was approaching to arrive. The idea of escaping in their current condition was laughable.
As the voices grew louder, Isa recognized Samuel, Ada, and Rahmin, but she thought she could also hear a fourth person. A stranger. A woman.
The voices were slightly muffled, and Isa guessed that their captors were still in the tunnel that led to the cave. That was good; it meant that she and Martin weren’t far from the cavern’s exit. Now all they had to do was get there.
Suddenly, the voices were louder and clearer. The Tyrians were almost upon them.
“It’s boiling down here,” said the new woman. “Are you sure they’re still going to be alive?”
“Probably,” Samuel replied. “They’ve only been here a couple of hours. Besides, it doesn’t matter too much if they’re dead. The point was to stop them snooping. If we can find out something useful from them now it’ll be a bonus, but I’m almost certain we don’t have anything to fear. We did a good job of keeping the Noctus bitch’s nose out of our business.”
The sound of tramping feet accompanied the voices.
“Where did we put them?” Ada asked. “I thought it was round about here.”
“No,” Rahmin replied. “It was further in. I remember I had to guide the a-grav transporter around that big crystal.”
“Yeah,” said Ada. “That’s right. So they should be somewhere over there.”
Isa wished she could use the Link to speak to Martin. If this was to be their last few moments of life, there were some things she wanted to say to him. She rested her forehead against the warm, wet, hard floor and smiled grimly to herself. Of all the possible outcomes of her work project, this wasn’t one that she’d anticipated.
“Huh?” said Samuel. He was very close by, though Isa still couldn’t see him or any of the others. “I could have sworn we left them here. Where have they gone?”
“Have they escaped?” the strange woman asked. “Didn’t you tie them up?”
“Of course we did,” Rahmin said. “There’s no way they—”
“I see them,” Ada exclaimed. Her footsteps came closer. “They’ve moved a bit, that’s all. They must have woken up.”
Though Isa craned her neck, her captors remained out of sight. Then she heard Martin grunt as they moved him. She looked down, and a moment later, a hand grasped her shoulder and roughly turned her over. She cried out as her arms twisted under her back. Rahmin’s face was in hers, staring down at her cruelly.
“There you are.” A grin settled on his lips, but it was not a pleasant one.
Ada was with him. Their expressions were so different from what she remembered, Isa hardly recognized them. Their features were hard and stony. For the first time, she felt like she was seeing them as they truly were.
She heard scuffling and looking down beyond her feet again, she saw that Samuel and the new woman were dragging a struggling Martin further away, toward an open area. The woman was strong-looking and tall and wore her hair in a single pigtail.
Isa’s observations were interrupted by Ada grabbing her ankles and
tugging her in the direction the others were taking Martin. The back of Isa’s skull hit rock, and her hands scraped against the rough floor.
“Are you going to help or not?” Ada asked Rahmin, her voice strained with effort.
The shaggy-haired Tyrian gripped one of Isa’s ankles. She kicked out at both of them, momentarily freeing her legs. Her freedom was short-lived, however, as both Ada and Rahmin grabbed her calves tightly.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Isa yelled. “Let us go!” She twisted out of their grasp.
Ada made another grab for Isa’s ankle, but Isa kicked the woman’s hand away. Her restraints meant that she couldn’t lash out with any significant force, but she’d be damned if she was going to let these people do whatever they wanted without putting up a fight.
“Dammit,” Ada exclaimed. “Maybe we should just shoot them now. Can’t you do something to stop her fighting?” she asked Rahmin irritably.
He stumped the two steps it took to reach Isa’s head, drew back his leg, and kicked her in the ear. The force snapped her head around, and for a few seconds, she was senseless. When she came to herself again, her head ached so much that it almost masked the throbbing agony in her limbs. Ada and Rahmin were dragging her over the ridged floor. The wet, slick sweat that soaked her hair was being replaced by viscous blood.
They let go of her when they’d reached Martin. He was lying in a backward ‘C’. Samuel and the pig-tailed woman stood over him.
Isa looked into his eyes, and the concern for her she saw there nearly broke her heart. She wished he wasn’t there, if only so that he wasn’t suffering at the hands of these maniacs.
Rahmin and Ada joined Samuel and the new woman. Now that she could see them clearly, Isa noticed that Samuel and Pigtail were carrying guns.
“Which one?” Ada asked.
Samuel indicated Isa with a nod of his head. “She arrived first to check out Tyre; I bet she knows something. And she’ll feel it. He won’t—he has a rather sophisticated AI.”
Prickles ran down Isa’s back. What did they intend to do? And how did they know about Eamon? Then she remembered the day at the fjords, when Martin said Eamon had measured the drop from the top of the cliff to the sea.
“I agree,” Ada said. “She made a beeline here almost right after she arrived. She knew exactly where to snoop.”
Pigtail sauntered over to Isa and angled the muzzle of her weapon at her head. “Tell us what you’re doing on Tyre.” She lifted a foot and pressed her boot into Isa’s shoulder. “Tell us why you really came here.”
“Your friends know why I’m here,” Isa replied. “What kind of a stupid question is that? Why are you doing this?”
She heard a click, and white-hot pain shot up from her thigh. She screamed. She could smell her own flesh burning.
“Stop it!” Martin roared. “Isa, are you okay?”
It took a moment for Isa to realize that Pigtail had shot her in the leg. Between the waves of agony, she managed a nod.
“Now tell us why you’re here!” demanded Ada.
“We don’t know what you’re trying to find out,” said Martin. “You’re making a big mistake, but if you stop this here and now, maybe we can still salvage this situation before it’s too late for you.”
Pigtail laughed. “The only people it’s too late for here are you two. And everyone else on Tyre, of course. And hopefully all the New Canaanites, by the time we’re done.”
“What?!” Martin exclaimed. “What are you going to do?”
Samuel barked a short laugh. “I know you must find it surprising that we’re further along with our plans than you thought, but don’t pretend you don’t have any idea. I always knew you guys were dumb, but you can’t be that dumb.”
“They’re bluffing,” said Rahmin. “Keeping up their act.”
“Shoot her again,” Samuel said to Pigtail. “She can tell us something useful. I know it. It’ll help if we know what we’re up against.”
“No,” Martin shouted. “Look, we really don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you tell us, maybe we can help you.”
“No,” said Isa. “Don’t, Martin. Don’t help them.”
His face twisted as he replied, “What difference does it make, Isa? Let’s face it, we aren’t getting out of here alive. I don’t want you to suffer more. Maybe we can tell them what they want to know. Then they’ll leave us alone. Right?” He turned slightly onto his back and looked up at Samuel.
“Now there’s a sensible man,” Samuel said.
“Don’t get taken in,” Rahmin said. “He’s still bluffing.”
“So what if he is?” said Pigtail. She returned to Samuel’s side. “Let’s play along. We have time. Then if they still don’t tell us anything we can use, they die painfully. Or at least she does.”
Isa didn’t know what Martin was up to. Maybe he was only buying time to think of a way out of the situation. If so, she hoped he came up with something, because she was out of ideas.
“We know you were here to find out what we were doing with the antimatter,” said Ada. “You were here to look for signs of drilling, weren’t you? Detonation sites.”
“Yes,” Samuel said. “Tell us what you found, and what your friend Erin knows.”
Despite her pain, Isa blurted out, “Erin?”
“Cut it out,” Rahmin yelled. “Quit the innocent act, okay?”
For a terrifying split-second, Isa thought the Tyrians had captured Erin too, but then she realized that if they had, they probably wouldn’t be interrogating her and Martin.
Is this whole thing tied up with Erin’s investigation? Is she under threat too?
“We don’t know anyone named Erin,” said Martin.
Isa guessed he had the same fear she did, that Erin was also in danger.
Pigtail coolly walked in front of Martin and kicked him in the stomach. He gasped and then groaned, turning his head to the side.
“Don’t lie,” Pigtail spat. “We’ve kept tabs on Erin ever since I found out she was the investigator assigned to the Irridia incident. We know you three are connected. You all went to Athens together and stayed in the same room at a hotel in Marathon. Then she suddenly turns up here.” She pointed at Isa. “Coincidence? No. We aren’t that stupid. She was sniffing around, chasing leads. Then you arrive,” she said to Martin. “We know you were searching, trying to connect the dots. Good job. Very smart. But you were too late. Even if you have found some sites, you can’t possibly have discovered more than a few. Samuel, Ada, and Rahmin kept you too busy for that. So whether you tell us what you know or not, Tyre’s going up. In a few hours, this planet will be uninhabitable. Maybe you’ll live long enough to experience it.”
“The explosion on Irridia,” Isa exclaimed. “The sabotage. That was you!”
Pigtail’s expression shifted to a sneer.
“You’re going to…?” Martin asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Is this guy dumb or what?” Rahmin asked. “We’re going to crack Tyre open like a rotten egg. Break things up a touch. Should be pretty,” he added to the others. “From space.”
“But why would anyone want to…” said Martin. He paused and swallowed, then suddenly, he looked drained and defeated. “You’re SSS.”
SSS?
Isa wondered what Martin was referring to. She’d never heard of an organization that went by that name; not that it mattered. Pigtail and the others were dangerous fanatics, that was all she needed to know. ‘SSS’ probably stood for ‘Screwy Senseless Simpletons’ or ‘Strange Schizo—'
Suddenly, Martin leapt up. His restraints were on the ground in a pile behind him. He elbowed Samuel in the face, sending the Tyrian reeling, allowing Martin to snatch the other man’s weapon.
Isa could see that something was wrong with one of Martin’s arms—it hung uselessly while he held Samuel’s rifle one-handed. He ducked as Pippa fired, then shot up at her.
The woman ran, quickly darting behind a cryst
al. Ada and Rahmin were running too as Martin sprayed fire, but Martin still managed to hit Rahmin in the back and Ada in her thigh and ass.
“Isa,” Martin shouted.
Samuel made a grab for his legs, and Martin shot him in the chest.
Isa knew immediately what Martin meant. She turned over so that he could see her restraints. She would have to put her trust in his one-armed aim. A burst of fire sounded behind her, and the tension on her shoulders and ankles disappeared, though they were still bound together.
Martin knelt down behind her and her wrists came free. She pulled them around in front of herself as he worked at her ankles.
“Eamon couldn’t cut through the straps, but the locking mechanisms had a remote release. He was able to hack it—I wanted to say something, but then they showed up.”
Her ankles came free, and Isa cried out from the pain in her thigh as she straightened her legs.
“It’s OK,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Can you walk?” he asked, helping her to her feet.
Isa leaned heavily on a crystal rising from the relatively flat area in the cavern. “Maybe…a bit.”
She took one step, but shots echoed through the cavern, and the crystal next to her head shattered.
“Run!” yelled Martin as he fired toward where Pigtail must have taken cover.
Isa lurched forward, half aware that Rahmin was nearly dead and that Ada was still alive but incapacitated. Once she began to move, it was easier to keep going, and she picked up speed, running lopsided, favoring her good leg. At first, she didn’t head in any particular direction; she only knew she had to move fast.
She was ducking under a crystal that jutted across her path when she realized that she shouldn’t get too far from Martin. The sounds of two weapons firing still echoed in the cavern, but then the weapons fell silent.
Isa swung around. Her leg seemed to scream. She peered back the way that she’d come, only to see that Pigtail was aiming right at her.
“Hey,” Martin shouted.
He was right behind Pigtail. He fired, but the woman dove out of the way, and Isa resumed her hobbling run, desperate to find safety.