Espero (The Silver Ships Book 6)
Page 31
Soon three of Toyo’s people realized they were the last defenders of the blue lift. Without a leader to exhort them to fight to the last, they yelled out their plea for the Harakens to stop firing so they might surrender.
“Come out, one at a time, holding your weapon by the barrel. Walk toward us and place your hand gun on the deck when we order you. Do you understand?” Alex yelled. He received a chorus of agreement, and Alex ordered the first one out.
A woman came out first. There was nothing gentle in her look, and Alex held his weapon at the ready in case her gender caused any of his people to hesitate.
“Stop,” Alex ordered when the woman had covered about 5 meters. “Weapon on the deck.” When she obeyed, he ordered her to walk the rest of the way, and she was passed to the rear. The process was repeated for the next two individuals. Six troopers guarded them.
“Do we hold them here, Mr. President?” one of the troopers asked.
Alex looked at Tatia, who walked to the rear, told the three individuals to sit down against the wall, and promptly stunned them.
“Problem solved,” Tatia said offhand to the troopers, who were guarding them.
Alex picked up the deadly stunners and handed them to Julien. The SADE had a growing cache of the deadly hand guns in a large sack he discovered in a utility room and now wore over his back.
The Harakens advanced slowly, expecting further treachery, but their avalanche of fire had been highly effective. Several of Toyo’s people were nursing numb arms and shoulders and had chosen not to continue the fight. Toyo’s stun weapons were collected and given to Julien. Those individuals still conscious were immediately rendered unconscious.
Lenny, surveying the number of his people who had been eliminated by the Harakens, said to no one in particular, “You people are good. Wish I had known that before.”
Alex and Tatia regarded Lenny, and Alex sent to her,
Alain sent a signal to Alex and Tatia, who followed it to a side corridor and into an office. The escort was bent down behind a desk. As the two leaders came around to his side, Alain grasped the collar of a woman and pulled her off a man’s chest, her face blood-soaked. “Disguised though she is, this appears to be the woman who shot and killed Nestor.”
“A fitting end,” Tatia said.
Alex leaned close. “She shows no major wounds. I wonder —” Alex said, as he reached for her eyelid.
“Don’t, Ser,” Alain said sternly. “I checked for weapons. The man has none, and the woman’s hand gun was in her holster. I’ve confiscated it. However she died, falling forward in this manner, it speaks to something deadly besides guns and knives. Look there.”
Alex followed Alain’s finger and noted the sliver of sharp alloy clenched in the man’s teeth. Blood coated most of it, but a green substance shown on an exposed edge.
“Poison, do you think?’ Alex asked.
“Look along her cheek, Ser, but don’t touch.”
Alex could see the faint ridge of a cut beneath the coating of blood. “So this man huddles under here, trying to survive. This woman finds him and dispatches him with her knife only to make the mistake of getting too close, and he kills her with a poisoned blade in his mouth. Odd thing though, he’s wearing a brown uniform, and this type of killing suggests it was personal. Otherwise, she would have just used that nasty stun gun of hers.”
“I don’t care why or how she was killed,” Tatia said. “Good riddance. The takeaway here is that Toyo and Kadmir’s people are liable to be using any combination of lethal hand guns, plasma rifles, and now we can add poisoned blades to that list. Just how did criminality get this advanced in Oistos since we left?”
“I have a feeling we’re going to find out once we retrieve our girls,” Alex said.
“Great … politics,” Tatia said, fairly spitting the last word.
Étienne signaled Tatia, and she motioned to Alex. The two of them hurried from the office and ran back to the main concourse. Entering the corridor, they turned right, following Étienne’s signal and running farther away from the lift they had just secured.
Three troopers were flattened against the concourse’s outer curve behind Étienne. “Careful, Sers,” the escort said. The troopers slid back along the wall so that Alex and Tatia could ease up behind Étienne, who glanced backed at his two leaders and remarked, “It would please your security services if the two of you did not make such prominent targets.”
“I think he’s talking to you, Admiral, your chest is much more prominent than mine,” Alex quipped.
“I’ll have you know I’m prominent in the right places, Mr. President,” Tatia replied tartly. “Étienne, what do you have?”
“We came upon three brown-uniformed security personnel, who saw us and quickly retreated.”
“Did they fire on you?” Alex asked.
“Negative, Ser. We followed them and discovered an edifice just beyond the curve.” Étienne sent the vid he had recorded. It showed him walking carefully down the corridor to see the edge of a barricade that stretched wall to wall and deck to overhead. The final pieces were being placed, it was presumed, after the three individuals Étienne saw had retreated behind it.
“Did you speak to them?’ Tatia asked and received another vid.
Étienne was heard hailing those behind the barricade and announcing he was a Haraken. The response came loud and clear, “Don’t know you; don’t want to know you. Get back in your shuttle and vacate our premises.”
“That seems pretty definitive,” Alex remarked.
“I say we post the three troopers here just to ensure they don’t decide to come through their barricade again,” Tatia suggested.
“Agreed,” Alex said. “Étienne, you’re with us.”
* * *
Cordelia located Julien’s signal up ahead and picked up her pace. Focusing on his position in the crowd of Harakens, who held a concourse’s major intersection, Cordelia spied a head with bird feathers tied in the hair. A smile overcame her face at the absurdity of the decoration, and the smile only widened when Julien turned and displayed a face decorated in bright, parallel smears of various colored lines.
When Julien and Cordelia met, their arms entwined and their foreheads touched. Few would have believed the incredible amount of thoughts and emotions exchanged between the two SADEs in those brief moments.
While the two groups were mixing and environment suits were being handed out and donned, Alex, Tatia, and Étienne arrived from far down the concourse. Both Alex and Tatia took stock of who had arrived and exchanged a quick glance when they realized Mickey was at the back of the pack.
When Alex reached Franz, he eyed the commander, who, knowing the question on his president’s mind, merely offered a shrug.
Tatia chuckled and said, “Now, perhaps, Mr. President, you know how I feel when you give me that reaction.”
“It’s one I understand, Admiral. It means that despite what you thought, hoped, or planned … inexplicably, none of those things happened.”
Alex looked at Julien, who shook his head. The girls were still unreachable by the SADE’s comm, whether it was by deliberate isolation, structure, or distance. “We need to get to the lower domes. If nothing else, we ne
ed to catch up with Toyo and put an end to the killing. Maybe we can engage Kadmir in conversation then.”
“You need an officer,” Lenny said, drawing everyone’s attention.
Alex crooked a finger at Lenny, whose eyes glanced at his beloved rifle, so Alex crossed to him. “Talk to me, Lenny.”
“I heard people talking years ago that Mr. Toyo got a hold of Mr. Kadmir’s dome plans and built his place just like Mr. Blue’s. To get to the lowest dome, where I think your fems are probably held, it would take an officer.” Lenny looked around him, and the Harakens cleared his path as he searched. They could hear Lenny mutter “nope” repeatedly, as he looked at one body after another.
Exhausting all those nearby, Lenny widened his search to the side corridors and headed toward the green lift. Lifting a piece of debris off a woman who was badly burnt, Lenny announced, “Her … that’s who you need. She’ll have the chip on her somewhere. Can I have my rifle now?”
“Thank you for your help, Lenny. I’ll offer a compromise for now,” said Alex and waved the trooper forward, who held Lenny’s rifle. He held out his hand and the trooper handed over the weapon, but not without a bit of hesitation on his part. Alex pulled the heavy power pack that charged the gases, handed the rifle to Lenny, and tossed the power pack back to the trooper.
“Thanks, mister,” said Lenny, who was all smiles. He cradled his weapon, one hand lovingly stroking the length of the weapon.
“We have access and now we need a destination,” Alex said, to no one in particular.
“Do we know who was last on the lift?” Mickey asked, easing his way to the front to the group.
“Ah, my senior marksman,” Alex said, which drew chuckles from many in the group. “Don’t shoot any of our people, especially yourself, with that,” Alex added, pointing to the stun gun on Mickey’s thigh.
“You of all people, Mr. President, should know how valuable engineers can be,” Mickey replied in a huff. “So who was the last on the lift?”
“According to Lenny,” Alex replied, “Toyo took a car full of his people down, and the rest were to stand guard here at the lift.”
“In one of Miranda’s messages, she remarked how she accessed the level in Kadmir’s domes where the service personnel took the drug-manufacturing supplies,” Mickey said, excitedly. “We will need her,” he added, pointing to the officer Lenny had identified.
Alex went to retrieve the body, but Cordelia intercepted him.
“Allow me, Ser,” Cordelia said quietly. She turned the body over. The woman’s eyes were open in surprise and Cordelia gently closed them. “Sorry, dear one,” Cordelia said softly, and carried the dead woman to the lift.
When Cordelia approached the lift within a couple of meters, the wall-mounted keypad lit and Mickey tapped the call button. Within moments, the high-speed lift car arrived, and its doors slid open. Mickey was the first on, excitedly waving to others to join him.
Crestfallen, Mickey nodded his head in agreement. He had seen the dead bodies on the way in, and, though he wanted to help, he knew he wouldn’t be an asset in a deadly fight.
“Franz and Julien protect this lift,” Alex ordered. To fill the car, Alex chose Tatia, the twins, and four troopers, two of whom were carrying plasma rifles. “Mickey, how do we access the level where Toyo went?”
“The chip on the officer in Cordelia’s arms will trigger the security parameter that you need. Request the control box to take you to the last level the lift accessed. If Toyo’s people got off and others didn’t use the car to travel to another level, you should find him down there.”
“Mr. President,” Julien said. “Captain Cordova has arrived overhead. The Rêveur’s travelers are patrolling and keeping ship traffic at a distance.”
“Thank you, Julien,” Alex replied, and gave Renée a quick kiss.
The control box was repeating its message, requesting the female officer enter a dome and level. “Last level accessed, please,” Alex said.
“Accessing dome four, level six,” the voice of the control box intoned, and Alex took note of the way the keypad displayed the level, sending the information mentally to those in the car and outside before the doors closed.
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Kadmir was scrambling. He’d received word that his people had lost control of the blue lift, but he couldn’t blame them, not with Toyo’s people firing a plasma rifle. A plasma rifle in a surface dome, Kadmir thought. I don’t regret trying to take you out, you crazy fanatic; but I do regret not being more careful about it.
Knowing Toyo would try for the girls, Kadmir wondered if his competitor had any idea where they were or, better said, where they once were. He couldn’t believe that after all his machinations, the Haraken women, the most important part of his plan, were lost to him in his own domes. For the umpteenth time, he wondered how two exotic Méridien women accompanying a striking New Terran could hide from his people. “The Harakens probably created chameleon wear or skin, for all we know,” Kadmir grumped to himself.
This time and not doubting Toyo’s drive to succeed, Kadmir told his people to hold the green lift, at all costs, and protect the patrons and service personnel still trapped in the main dome, as he organized security forces to follow him to D4-L6, where the girls had once been kept.
* * *
Seated around a restaurant’s dining table in the main dome, Christie, Amelia, and Eloise kept their heads down. When they had exited the green lift in the company of five other similarly clad individuals, everyone had been directed to the large eatery.
Several of Kadmir’s people walked around telling those dressed in environment suits to open their faceplates and shut off their air to preserve it, in case it was needed in the future. The girls shut down their air and shoved up their faceplates before Kadmir’s people reached them. Having chosen a table in the corner, they sat with their backs to the rest of the restaurant.
Amelia sent.
Christie sent to her companions.
While the girls considered their options, Christie sent,
* * *
The car doors of the blue lift slid open on D4-L6, and Toyo and a guard ducked their heads out and back quickly, expecting to have drawn fire, but it was quiet. Toyo waved his people out into the corridor. When none of Kadmir’s
guards showed, Toyo hissed, “Put your weapons at your side, straighten up, and look like locals.”
Soon after, two women dressed in vacation garb hurried past the group, and Toyo touched the brim of his cap to them in passing. However, when a service person, exiting a side corridor, spotted the red uniforms, he dropped what he carried and raced back the way he had come.
“Well, Oslo, time to earn your keep,” Toyo said. “Where are the girls being kept?”
“This way,” Kadmir’s security officer replied.
As they walked the corridors, Toyo realized that although his domes were laid out in a similar fashion to Kadmir’s, the arrangement of rooms in the lower domes was different. He had no idea which of the rooms contained suites and could possibly hold the Haraken women.
“This is their suite,” Oslo said, after leading Toyo’s people through the dome for several moments. He was dreading what was to come, but there was nothing to prevent it. He watched Toyo smack the door actuator and leap though the opening with his powerful stun gun drawn.
“They’re not here,” Toyo said when he emerged from the suite, grabbing Oslo by the throat and shoving him against the wall.
“They were here,” Oslo cried out, trying to stick as close to the truth as he could.
“Where would they have been taken?” yelled Toyo, spittle from his mouth landing on Oslo’s cheek. That actually scared the security officer more than the choke hold. It was the signal that Craze’s infamous temper was about to explode.
“If Mr. Kadmir was worried for their safety, he would have moved them to a security office near the green lift,” Oslo choked out. He was fervently hoping Toyo didn’t detect his lie.
“Take us there,” Toyo said, releasing him. “Be quick about it.”
By now, Oslo was fairly certain he wouldn’t survive his encounter with Craze Toyo, but the thought in the back of his mind was that if he was going to die, he was going to ensure the man or his people would be hurt.
* * *
After navigating several more twists and turns of the corridors, Oslo heard Toyo grumbling behind him.