Clan and Conviction (Clan Beginnings)

by Tracy St. John

  He told the squad, “Shoot to kill. Huk’s is the only body I want not breathing when this is over.”

  They reached a hatch that covered a crawlspace. It was the maintenance conduit and would take Wynhod right to the unit where Nobek Huk held his lover and others prisoner.

  Gelan’s voice continued to sound loud and clear in Wynhod’s earpiece as he spoke to Huk. Wynhod closed his eyes briefly as he thanked the ancestors for the calm, strong tone he heard. Then he opened the maintenance hatch.

  He took point, crawling in ahead of the rest.

  * * * *

  As soon as the door shut behind him, Gelan’s eyes fought to adjust to the dimness of the housing unit’s greeting room. The illuminated wall panels seemed to be at their lowest setting. The vids, which should have also offered some light, were all shut off.

  The greeting room was usually a home’s public space, used mostly to entertain guests. This one was rather small, making it an intimate place. It had two seating areas around low tables, a bar along one wall, and a scattering of toys among the brightly colored rugs. The room apparently got use even when no visitors were around.

  The growly voice he’d heard over Negotiator Fritom’s com greeted him. “Welcome to the party, Investigator. Come in and have a seat.”

  Huk sat at one of the seating areas, situated near one end of the room. The clan’s Matara Lis, a woman slightly older than Gelan, had been forced to sit on the Nobek’s crossed legs. He held a percussion blaster to her head. Her square but attractive face was composed, her steady gaze trained on her clanmates. Gelan admired her bravery as she took care to show no fear.

  The rest of the hostage clan sat at the other end of the room. In this instance, with their Matara in danger and being held in such an intimate manner by another man, it was impossible to tell Imdiko and Dramok from Nobek. With identical looks of homicidal fury on their faces, there was no way to discern which man was what breed. Gelan knew one wrong move from Huk could easily incite the male members of the clan to attack. That would no doubt end in one, if not all the men, dead. No doubt this was why Matara Lis maintained such poise despite her dire situation.

  Gelan noted that Huk was seated in a way that allowed him to see both entrances into the room: the door the investigator had just entered and an opening that led to the rest of the home. As Gelan took in the situation, he slowly walked towards the perp and the Matara. He kept his hands out to show he wasn’t armed. Moving carefully, he sat across the small table from the pair.

  Right away, he told Huk, “I hardly want to talk to you when you’ve got a helpless Matara at blaster point. You’ve got no need to hold her like that, especially when you can see anyone trying to sneak up on you. You were smart to sit in the corner with a sightline on both doors to this room.”

  His comments were a warning to Wynhod, who would be listening in via Gelan’s open com. He feared his statement would seem too descriptive to get past Huk, but the Nobek only grinned at him.

  “I like her where she is. Don’t I, little lady?”

  Lis said nothing. Her face remained set.

  Gelan sneered at Huk. “Only a coward hides behind women.”

  “Insults will not get me to react in anger, Investigator. I’m no coward. If you knew the way I’d be killed off by my associates, you’d do whatever it takes to avoid such a fate too.”

  Gelan nodded. “I’ve seen what happened to your associates, Nobek Huk. As for the majority of your gang, they’ve been taken out. Who is left to kill you?”

  Something flickered in Huk’s eyes. His smile dropped off immediately. “You’d be surprised. This is much bigger than you fools think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The Nobek snorted. “Look at me. Look at the rest of the gang. Few of us Nobeks went beyond basic training camp. All we cared about was fucking whatever we could get our dicks into, hurting people, and making money to buy the shit we liked. You think any of us knew how to mix together something as strong as Delir? That we had the first clue how to keep law enforcement from tracking us down for so long?”

  His words made Gelan think about all Krijero’s assertions. Huk was saying the same thing: that somehow the Delir operation was being run like a legitimate business with some smart, connected person at the top.

  His eyes narrowed at Huk. “You seem pretty smart. There were some Dramoks in your gang as well. Obviously, someone in your group knew what you were doing.”

  Huk snorted. “Of course there were Dramoks involved with the Delir. They liked to lead a bunch of mean bastards because they were mean bastards themselves. They couldn’t give a shit for bettering themselves otherwise. They didn’t have a brain between them, not for what we were doing.” He suddenly laughed uproariously. Matara Lis winced and cringed a little at the wild sound.

  “What’s so funny?” Gelan asked in a conversational tone.

  Huk shook his head. “Even though most of us had nothing to do with it, it was a pretty sweet setup. It’s almost worth dying just to have seen how bad you law boys got your asses handed to you. And you thought it was by a bunch of us uneducated idiots, no less.” He sobered again. “But not dying the way they’d do it. No way, Investigator. I’m not going out like that.”

  “So who are they? Who concocted the Delir and the way your gang got it out there?”

  “Damned if I know. That’s what scares me the most, how well they kept hidden. I have no idea who came up with Delir. I couldn’t tell you who’s running the show.”

  “Bullshit. You were high up enough in the organization.”

  The Nobek shook his head slowly. “I never saw a face, never heard a voice that wasn’t electronically distorted, never got a name. We received untraceable coms telling us where to go, what to do, where to send the funds, where to find the weapons. And when somebody fucked up, we were told. We’d get the orders to take that person out, and we did. In the nastiest ways possible, so nobody else would fuck up. That’s why you’ve got to hide me. I’m not going out that way.”

  Gelan eyed him with repugnance. “If you’ve got nothing to offer, why should I bother?”

  “Because you don’t want to see this bitch’s head end up in pieces against the wall.”

  Growls erupted from the men behind Gelan. The Matara’s eyes widened in an expression that beseeched her clanmates to remain still. Huk grinned, his gaze looking over Gelan’s shoulder at the clan, daring them to make a move.

  When the three men quieted, Gelan said carefully, “I can’t let you hurt the Matara. Her life is in my hands as of this moment.” He was not negotiating with Huk. He was sending a message to Wynhod.

  Huk gave Gelan his attention once more. “Then get me out of this. I got nothing to lose, cop. Not one damned thing except an easy death. The way I hear it, those bastards are everywhere, including the prisons.”

  Gelan sensed he was losing the Nobek, that at any moment the man might decide he wasn’t getting out of this anyway and start shooting. He kept his tone calm, however. “You can be placed in solitary.”

  “It’s not just the inmates, asshole. There are plants in the guards, if I even lived long enough to go to prison. Your headquarters has probably got a shitload of people working for the top, and they’ll arrange an accident. Or they’ll make it look like suicide. Didn’t you ever wonder how no one hardly ever got caught? Word got to us. We were kept informed.”

  Huk’s assertion that someone Gelan worked with helped the Delir gang brought a flash of anger boiling through the Dramok’s head. “I’m not buying it.”

  The gang member gave him a withering glare. “You should. Your former partner was a good friend to us. At least up until he decided he wanted more money and had to be taken care of.”

  Gelan almost growled himself and shut it down. Huk wanted to see him riled up. That was all. “That’s such bullshit.”

  Huk’s knowing smile mocked him. “Is it? It never occurred to you how your partner could never take any of us alive? That he was perfe
ctly content to blow us away when he knew you were desperate to question us?”

  Amik had always insisted he had no choice but to kill the men they went after. No matter how Gelan pressed him to try and keep the dealers they’d caught up with alive, it always ended up with a violent showdown, leaving no one to interrogate. That, or the dealers managed to commit suicide before Amik could render them helpless. His partner had cursed long and hard with each suicide, carried out with the brutal ingenuity Nobeks possessed.

  There had been clear mistakes, moments when Gelan’s former partner moved too slow or shot to kill when he could have simply incapacitated. He’d always had a ready excuse and an apology for fucking up. It had driven Gelan crazy, but Amik had saved his life more than once. Especially that last time that ended with the enforcer’s death. Gelan had accepted each and every justification his partner had offered because Amik had made sure he kept breathing.

  Latwik was the only one Gelan had kept alive long enough to get answers from, and that had been after Amik died.

  Gelan turned cold and shoved the idea away. No way. Amik wouldn’t have done that.

  He said, “My partner had over twenty years invested in law enforcement.”

  Huk’s brutal gaze never wavered. “Yeah, but he liked nice things like fancy shuttles and expensive trips. Stuff well beyond his and his clan’s means. Didn’t you ever wonder how he could afford those goodies?”

  Gelan knew from his own scrupulous saving of funds that over time, nice things could be bought. But right around the time Delir started being such a pain in law enforcement’s ass, the last couple of years of Amik’s life in fact, his partner had taken some extremely luxurious vacations. He had also managed to get some very nice toys, including that state-of-the-art personal shuttle he’d purchased only six months ago.

  I’m not going to think about this now. There were plenty of ways Amik could have gotten that shuttle legitimately. His clan probably pooled their resources, saved up for those vacations, the extravagant parties they started throwing, the expensive upgrades to their home…

  He didn’t want to believe his partner had been part of the Delir nightmare. But a small voice in his head whispered, one that wondered if Gelan had been duped all along. It asked if his desperate drive to solve the Delir problem had been thwarted by the man who had worked closest to him.

  Gelan’s stomach roiled viciously, sickened by the idea.

  * * * *

  Wynhod frowned hard as he followed the map displayed on his helmet’s visor. He and his team slowly made their way through the tight confines of the conduit. To say the maintenance tube was cramped would be putting it lightly. The entire group of enforcers was forced to crawl their way to Clan Sorp’s home unit. The Nobek had decided that some abysmally short architect had been peeved with his lack of height and decided to make the maintenance area a shaft rather than a more utilitarian corridor. Pipes poked Wynhod on more than one occasion. He wondered what havoc he created in the operations of the housing units when he bumped against control panels. Hopefully none, if the computers were password-protected, but who knew?

  It wasn’t the difficult going that made Wynhod frown, however. The information Gelan had passed along concerned him. Huk had a clear sightline that would let him know the instant the squad had their eyes on him. That he had a blaster ready to shoot the Matara in his possession was also a major problem. Then there was the issue of Gelan being in so much danger and apparently ready to put himself in even greater peril.

  Wynhod couldn’t even imagine what might be going on in his Dramok’s head right now. The allegation that his former partner had been on the take and assisted with keeping Delir’s operations under wraps was an ugly one. That Huk also had no knowledge of who was ultimately responsible for the destructive drug was another kick in the ass.

  Wynhod forced all these thoughts from his head. He had to remain dispassionate, concentrating only on the task ahead. What Gelan had passed along about the situation inside the home had changed the enforcer’s mission. It was going to take a lot more than skill to make it end in even a remotely satisfactory way. Luck would have to be with them in prodigious quantities, something Wynhod knew he couldn’t rely on.

  They were fucked, and the shooting hadn’t even started yet. But there was no help for it. He could only do the job to the best of his ability and hope it would be enough.

  He reached the access door – really only a hatch – to Clan Sorp’s home. He stopped and spoke into his com to the rest of the squad.

  “Enforcer Wynhod to team. Can everyone hear me?”

  Murmurs of assent sounded in his earpiece, slightly louder than Gelan and Huk’s conversation. What the two men were saying right now wasn’t really important; Wynhod could tell from Huk’s tone that he was getting ready to demand compliance or he would start shooting.

  Wynhod told the group, “Good. The intel I’m getting reveals we will not be able to sight on target before we attack. Also, target is holding the Matara hostage with a blaster to her head.”

  The squad leader who squatted right behind him asked, “Are we talking a no-win scenario, sir?”

  Wynhod thought of the Matara, one of so few fertile women, right now on the brink of death. He thought of Gelan, ready to die trying to save her. His stomach churned.

  “It looks that way. Investigator Gelan will do everything possible to get Matara Lis clear before we go for target. However, we are not giving in to the perp’s demands. We can’t let this dangerous man leave alive to threaten other innocent civilians. When Huk figures out we won’t cave to his demands, the Matara is dead anyway.”

  Grave silence greeted his words. Wynhod was glad no one took the matter lightly.

  He added, “When we get the signal, go in fast and lethal. Do not hesitate. Investigator Gelan has indicated the female is his responsibility, so any deadly result to her is his concern alone. You will not face discipline if the Matara is taken out with the target. Remember, she won’t survive anyway if the target does.”

  Still no one spoke, but Wynhod knew every face behind him set as grimly as his own. The enforcers knew they had a job to do. It wasn’t always the one they’d thought they’d signed on for, but he’d brought with him the best in the enforcement department. They knew sometimes a situation couldn’t be won. They would do what they needed to.

  Taking a deep breath, Wynhod opened the access panel.

  * * * *

  Gelan reined in his reeling thoughts and forced himself to attend the here and now. Wynhod was no doubt on his way, and the time had come to finish this standoff.

  The blaster pressed to Matara Lis’ head was his most pressing issue. Gelan hated to think he might have to let this innocent woman – a mother, no less – die just so Huk wouldn’t escape to do more damage to others.

  By the ancestors, if she should die and Gelan lived, how would he explain himself to her children? Those little boys’ faces were there in his mind’s eye, accusing him. He’d sworn he’d take care of their parents. He had to save their mother. He had to.

  Doing all he could to not appear to be studying Huk, he evaluated the situation. He needed to get the Nobek to turn just a hair to the left, making his aim a bit more awkward and opening him up towards the door that led to the rest of the home. That would give Wynhod a better chance at a kill shot, right to the chest.

  Gelan abruptly shifted to one side, getting one foot flat on the floor. Huk stiffened at the motion. Gelan saw how his hand tightened on the blaster, as if about to shoot. The Dramok spread his hands wide and held them out on either side of his head in a placatory pose.

  He said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I took a blaster hit to my right leg a few months back, and it’s not doing so well. I need to get off it, okay?”

  Huk eased down just a bit. He sneered at Gelan. “A Nobek would sit and enjoy the pain.”

  Gelan shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s why your breed is so damned tough. I’m going to be in agony in a few se
conds, and I’m not a Nobek.” It was all a ruse. Even if Gelan hadn’t been lying about the bad leg, pain had never been a big deal to him. He just wanted to get in a decent position to lunge at Huk.

  The Nobek’s eyes narrowed. Gelan thought he wouldn’t go for it, but his foe abruptly relented. “Move real slow. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “No problem.”

  Gelan managed to maneuver himself closer to Matara Lis without blocking any shot that might come from the invading enforcers. He eased himself onto his left hip, getting both feet on the floor. He kept his hands splayed out on either side, both for Huk’s benefit and because it would allow him to grab the woman much faster. At a time like this, even half a second would count.

  He sighed, as if in relief. “All right. That’s a much better position for me.”

  Huk sneered. “So glad you’re comfortable now. Let’s talk about how you’re going to get me out of here alive and happy.”

  This was it. Gelan was out of time. If Wynhod and his team were not in position, he and this clan were all about to die.

  He fixed Huk with a steady gaze. “It’s not going to happen, Nobek. You know we can’t let you go. Law enforcement has a strict policy on not negotiating with murderers and hostage takers.”

  Huk flashed his fangs. “I’m telling you that you have no choice. This bitch is dead if you don’t give me what I want.”

  Gelan looked at Lis. She met his gaze. He looked down at the floor next to Huk and back into her eyes. She blinked, but her expression of quiet fear never wavered. He didn’t know if she got the message, didn’t even know if she recognized it as a message, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. All he had left was hope and action.

  Gelan told Huk, “No deal, you murdering asshole. You’re dead.”

  Huk’s expression went feral in an instant. Then his eyes suddenly cut to one side and widened.

  Gelan lunged for the Matara, yanking her away from Huk and down to the floor. She went down as the Nobek’s blaster boomed loud, making Gelan’s ears pop. The Dramok had no time to see if the woman he dropped on top of still possessed a head. He could only shield her with his own body as more blaster fire deafened him. The huge volley told him Wynhod and the enforcer squad had arrived and fired at Huk.