These Tecran were looking at her with the horror and condescension she'd seen in Farnn and the others' eyes when she'd first interacted with them.
“You are the reason those UC people are coming to take over our military and government.“ The man who spoke was the same one who'd claimed it was a coup.
“How am I the reason?” she asked.
That shut him up, and he looked down, mumbled something.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“He doesn't have a good answer, because you aren't the reason. The person who took you from your home is the reason.” The woman standing next to him spoke with what sounded very much like contempt. “How long have you been here?”
“Three months, I'm told. I wasn't conscious for all of it.”
Again, there was silence.
“This is just pure trouble.” One of the men in the crowd started moving backward. “No good can come of it, and if the military are cleaning up their mess, I don't want to be in their way.”
“That makes you a coward, and the reason they were able to put us in this situation to begin with,” the woman who spoke earlier told him.
Everyone shifted uncomfortably, and Lucy realized they were put on the spot with the coward accusation. No one wanted to look like a coward, but some were already looking around to see if there was a military clean up crew on the way.
That thought jolted her.
Someone would be recording this, surely. It was enough of a spectacle, after all.
And she didn't think, even if they wanted to, anyone here could help her if the military came for her.
“Just, please, tell me what I need to know.” She caught the woman's eye.
“You aren't the only one they took,” the woman said, waving up at the screen. “And they were caught out, and now--”
Someone at the back screamed.
The sound of the cry started a panicked movement by the crowd. People began to edge away, and then to run.
Lucy didn't bother trying to see what had caused the panic. She dove into the crowd, letting it sweep her along and then she slipped down a narrow alleyway.
She crouched down in the shadows, pulling her cloak over her head, and peered around the corner to see what had caused the fuss.
Two hovers were moving across the square, and while a lot of the crowd had dispersed, some of the people were still standing there, watching the hovers approach. Some were holding their wrists in a way that made her think they were recording.
“Who are you? What is your business?” The woman who had at least shared some information with her called out, a challenge in her voice.
“Are you here to 'clean up your mess'?” A man who stood near the woman shouted. “Show your faces. Are you with the military?”
His demand drew some people back, and as they converged on the square, cutting the hovers off, the drivers lifted them higher.
They hung, suspended for a moment, and then something hit Lucy's ears, a pulse of some kind.
It hurt.
She curled over her knees, hands to ears, just barely hearing the screams from the square.
The pain disappeared as fast as it had come, and she raised her head cautiously.
People were picking themselves off the floor, and the screen on the side of the building was blank.
The hovers were gone.
They had killed all the electronic devices with some sort of electro-magnetic pulse, she guessed.
Whoever was hunting her couldn't afford for any comms of her to surface, and they couldn't answer the questions that had been thrown at them, either. They'd run when challenged.
That was good to know.
But if they caught her on the street without the benefit of a crowd around her, they wouldn't hesitate to grab her.
She had no doubt about that.
What she needed was more information. Some way to understand everything that was going on.
The Tecran here were conflicted, that much was certain. It would be difficult to work out enemies from allies, but at least not everyone was an enemy.
She rose to her feet, pressing back against the wall. The military knew she was here now.
They could just as easily have left someone in the square to wait for her to show herself again. In fact, they'd have been stupid not to.
She didn't know what to do next.
Where to go or how to find out what she needed to know.
But standing here wasn't going to help her. She needed to move.
The square was almost empty now. Most people had picked themselves up, but they were standing in small groups, talking, and she didn't think they'd be shrugging off the incident and pretending nothing had happened.
More than one of the uniformed officers she'd noticed earlier were now visible, and it looked like they were questioning witnesses.
As she watched them approach a group, she saw a woman step back and walk slowly away. It reminded her of herself earlier, of the nonchalance she'd affected, and so she was still watching when the woman glanced casually down the first narrow alleyway she passed.
Her heart sped up as she waited for the woman to pass another. The woman glanced down that one, too.
Looking for someone.
Looking for me.
Lucy turned, and jogged down the alleyway as fast as she could.
Chapter 8
Bane was interested that Dray Helvan hadn't shared the details of his plan to stay out of sight of Tecra with the UC ambassador, or even his own Grihan colleagues.
He'd expected Dray to simply repeat what Bane had murmured into his earpiece, but the Grihan officer had editorialized, giving no specifics whatsoever.
Pretending Bane hadn't given him anything more.
It had surprised him so much, Bane had started following him around almost constantly.
His choice of Dray had been random, he'd thought. Any one of the three Grih would have done.
But Dray's parting shot to the ambassador, that Bane was probably more comfortable with a military officer than someone else, rang true, and for the first time, he realized he wasn't as self-aware as he thought he was.
He still had things to learn about himself.
That in itself was mind-altering.
Rose had something she did, putting her fists on either side of her head and opening them and softly saying, 'boom'. Like an explosion.
She said it meant 'mind blown'.
He'd never understood it.
Now he had an inkling.
This was all so . . . interesting.
He liked it.
He also had to get going now--put his plan into action. The Tecran solar system was coming up and he needed to disappear. Needed to uphold the agreement he'd made, although the Tecran thought he'd be out of sight because he'd be sitting at the edge of their system, not out of sight because he'd be shielding himself as he sat on Gyre, the bigger of Tecra's two moons.
He'd be minutes away from the planet there, instead of hours.
“I'll be in touch if something comes up,” he said to Dray, watching through the visual comms as the officer went still, holding up the heavy weights he was lifting in the battleship's gym with a grimace. “I'm off to hide now.”
Dray set the weights down carefully and wiped his forehead. “You sure you can be that close and stay hidden?”
“Very sure.” Bane thought of all the times he'd come and gone from Tecra when he'd been under the control of the Tecran military, and if he'd had a mouth, it would have been turned up in a wry twist.
“You've done it before.” Dray's eyes went up to the lens in the gym. His expression was one of sudden understanding. “You're an old hand at it.”
“Let's put it this way,” Bane allowed amusement to color his tone, “it's not my first time.”
“The military knows you can do that.” Dray spoke softly. “If they've done it when you were under their control, they probably won't believe you're sitting at the edge of the system.�
�
“Yes.” He'd already thought of that. “But if they come looking for me on Gyre, that'll leave a trace in the system. You'll need to look out for it.”
Dray nodded slowly. “And if they find you?”
“Dead Tecran tell no tales.” Bane kept his voice even.
Dray said nothing, his lips a tight line. And then he nodded. “Agreed.”
He'd chosen his ally well, Bane thought, and something that felt like warmth flooded him.
If he did find the Earth woman, he would at least have someone he was beginning to trust as his feet on the ground.
His sidekick, as Rose called herself in relation to Sazo.
He smiled at the thought of Rose. She'd sent him a message this morning, telling him she was thinking of him, and hoped the trip wasn't too hard on him. Too traumatic.
It made him wonder about the anger and tension he'd felt when he'd come into contact with the Tecran envoy. Was that part of the trauma?
He had no one to ask. And he didn't mind the anger. He . . . relished it.
He hadn't been able to express it until Rose had freed him, and for a while after she had, he'd wallowed in it.
Now it was more focused. And he controlled it, not the other way around.
Mostly.
Because he enjoyed doing it, and because Rose told him it had a lot of visual impact, he started to spin his Class 5 in place. It didn't do anything, didn't have any significance, except that he was having fun, but Rose was right in that it seemed to take up a lot of discussion time among the allies that were part of the United Council.
Then he shot up and kept going.
The moment he was out of range, he changed course, shielding himself as he sped toward Tecra, and when he was more or less directly above the moon, he slowly sank downward.
He would land on Gyre a few hours before the Tecran envoy and the Urna got here.
His shields were one way. He could pick up signals while his own remained untraceable.
As he dropped lazily through space, he began listening for any comms coming from Tecra.
If an incident was local, most likely he'd only pick it up when he got to Gyre, but he scanned anyway.
If the Earth woman was still alive and on Tecra, the arrival of the UC would hopefully spark some reaction.
If it did, he didn't intend to miss it.
“That was quite a show Bane put on.” Zutobi leaned back in her chair as Dray joined her and Yolandi at the dining table.
They tended to eat together at dinner every night, talking over things that they thought were important to the mission, but having lunch together was unusual. It was probably one of the last lunches they'd have onboard, though.
“Was it?” Dray slid into his seat and set his plate down. “I was in the gym. I didn't see it.”
“Oh.” Yolandi looked up in surprise. “You missed something good. It was a show, as Zutobi says.”
“An unnecessary one, in my view. All he needed to do was stop and let us pass him, surely?” Zutobi's glance across at him was amused.
Dray let his lips quirk. “But then no one would be talking about it as much.”
“No.” Zutobi grinned. “He's certainly adept at playing to the crowd.”
“Given what the crowd thought of him and his kind until recently, you can hardly blame him.” Yolandi set down her cutlery. “I'm guessing the ambassador is probably pleased with what he did. Maybe she even discussed it with him.”
“Maybe.” Dray didn't think he'd be so lucky, but he was happy to agree. He hoped Yolandi shared her theory with more than just him and Zutobi.
“Speaking of whom . . .” Zutobi murmured.
Dray turned and saw the ambassador heading for their table, a plate in her hand.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Of course not.” Yolandi pulled back the chair next to her. “Please do.”
Filavantri Dimitara sat daintily down and held Dray's gaze. “Did you see Bane leave?”
He shook his head. “I was in the gym. I heard it was a sight to see.”
She inclined her head. “He has completely disappeared from our scanners. The Tecrans, as well.”
“So they're happy now?” Yolandi asked.
“We've given them what they asked for, so I assume so.” Dimitara shrugged. “I didn't exactly get a thank you, though.”
“How long until we reach Tecra?” Zutobi set her empty plate aside.
“We'll be there in two hours.” Dimitara looked less than enthusiastic. “Already I've seen footage from Tecra that shows how deeply they resent our coming.”
Dray lifted his shoulders. “If it was my planet, I'd be resentful, too, but they can't pretend they didn't bring it on themselves.”
“I think the line is that they didn't know what the military were doing, so they shouldn't be punished.” Dimitara started eating the meat on her plate, and Dray caught a flash of those sharp, sharp teeth again.
“We expected that.” Yolandi sighed. “They don't want to accept responsibility, but the people of Tecra run the government, and the military is part of that. They can't use the excuse that they didn't know. They should have known. They weren't vigilant enough.”
Dray thought of all the checks and balances in place in the Grihan military, and had to agree.
If they hadn't known--and some of them must have done--they should have. They needed to accept their punishment and cooperate.
“Well, eat up, then get ready to face what looks to be a hostile welcome,” Dimitara said. She had looked worn down for the last few days, but she lifted her head and drew in a breath, and Dray realized she looked fierce. “I received a message from Rose McKenzie this morning. She thanked me for leading this team. And it reminded me all over again what I found in Sazo's Class 5 holding cells. The death and destruction. You're right, Yolandi. They should have known, and I'm damn sure some of them did. So we do not cower, and we do not bend in the face of their unhappiness. They broke the most sacred rule we have, and they need to accept the consequences.”
Dimitara's voice rose as she spoke, and Dray realized everyone in the dining hall had heard her. Every eye was on her.
Including the Tecran liaison's, Vauk.
Dray watched her turn away and hurry out.
But there was no place to run.
The UC team was arriving in Tecra, and he had a feeling in his gut that this was going to be a lot less cordial than the councilors representing the five member groups had thought it would be when they created this alternative to war.
He shook off his foreboding and made his way to his rooms to pack. Grihan Battle Center had been a lot more realistic about this mission than the UC. They'd discussed the likelihood of things not going as planned. Dray had a list of possible scenarios and he could and would alert his superiors if any of them looked likely.
They'd be ready if the Tecran realized they really couldn't accept UC rule.
And so would he.
Chapter 9
The sun set early.
Lucy shivered against another gust of freezing wind that ripped through the narrow back alleys, but it was even colder closer to the cliffs.
She'd zigzagged her way across the city as the day wore on, taking the narrow alleyways, cutting across from street to street, always moving.
She tested doors as she went, finding them all locked.
She could only hope there wasn't some kind of video surveillance, or the police would be looking for a suspicious person who was trying doors all over the city.
She realized with a start she didn't even know what the city was called, and then shoved the thought aside.
What did it matter right now?
Suddenly, the wind cut off, and she blinked, saw that in keeping close to the wall of the building she was walking past, she'd found a little pocket of protection.
Unable to face the sting of cold on her cheeks again, she huddled in closer, closed her eyes and felt the seep of tears behind her eyelids as her w
hole body shuddered in relief.
Just a few minutes, she told herself.
Just a few minutes of not moving, of not being cold.
She didn't know when she heard the sound of footsteps, but not soon enough, because they were almost upon her.
She tensed, unable to see who was coming past the curve in the building that was giving her shelter, but suddenly she was looking at the back of a Tecran carrying an armful of parcels.
He didn't slow down or so much as look her way.
She dismissed him, glad for the deep shadows and her cloak. She'd encountered very few people in the back alleys, but those she had passed had barely looked at her.
She was smaller than them and obviously no threat. And the cloak, something she'd found reminiscent of tragic family sagas set on moors or highway robbers in Regency England--although, come to think of it, also Darth Vader--appeared to be standard dress. It wasn't just the outfit on the massive statue in the square, most people wore one when they were walking out of doors and she wasn't going to complain.
It suited her needs perfectly. It hid her face, her hands, and her body.
A curse snapped her out of her thoughts, and she realized she'd been drifting, not paying attention again. The parcel-carrier was swearing softly as he stood at the back door of the building she was leaning against, fiddling with his access card.
It was similar to the one Farnn had given her at the facility, and eventually he got it close enough to the reader to activate the lock. The door clicked and he shouldered it open, dropping a parcel as he staggered through.
She straightened, watching the door swing closed and then stop just short of shutting completely, with the edge of the parcel in the way.
She tried to run, but it was more a stumbling lope.
She got to the top of the stairs, peered through the crack in the door, just in time to see the Tecran turn a corner with the parcels.
She squeezed through the narrow gap, and stood, panting, in a big open space with a spiral staircase winding above her head.
Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4) Page 5