by Sonia Nova
Fuck… This was a distraction she didn’t need. She had a mission. She was getting closer to solving this – literally and figuratively – and trying to dissect her feelings and reactions wasn’t going to get her anywhere helpful. It wasn’t even relevant to the case.
Sure, she was working with Xeegan for now, and she had to make sure that decision was a good one and didn’t end up destroying her whole investigation. That meant she just needed to remain civil with him. No need to think too much.
Just lagging behind and not being too close to Xeegan was already clearing her head. Her thoughts drifted back to the plan – or lack thereof.
They were really just heading to this rumored warehouse to look around, but Kira had a feeling that if they found any clues as to where the missing Ezak-X was, Xeegan wouldn’t want to wait and involve the Alliance in a rescue, and she would go with him.
She really had thrown out the investigation rulebook just by involving him. Her unease wasn’t helped by the fact that she had a bad feeling about all of this. Her imagination was coming up with more things that could go wrong in the next few hours than could go right.
Thinking about the timeframe of the mission prompted her to look around. Huge, boxy, nondescript warehouses surrounded them, casting intermittent shadows across the road. An occasional truck drove by but, otherwise, the poorly maintained sidewalks were empty. They were definitely in the manufacturing district, and a somewhat neglected pocket of it, it seemed.
Now that she had cooled down and the… incident… wasn’t at the forefront of her mind, she decided she had to get over herself and talk to Xeegan about what they were about to do.
She jogged to catch up with him. Zorq had just climbed up the side of a building, making it look easy, and was following them on the semi-connected roofs of the warehouses.
“Why’s he up there? Is he scouting? Are we getting close?”
Xeegan scowled down at her, not slowing his pace. “That’s a lot of questions.”
“And I’m hoping you have answers,” Kira snapped. She had even less patience for him now than ever before.
Her annoyed tone seemed to go over his head, or he just didn’t care. “See that gray warehouse up ahead? Across the street, two blocks from here. With the cracked windows.”
“Yeah,” Kira nodded.
“That’s the old abandoned microprocessor plant. Old Ironsides – the pirate I talked to – said the warehouse is next to it. So, we have a couple of options.”
Kira stopped walking. “Wait,” she said, getting Xeegan to look at her. He stopped walking as well. “You’re saying the off-planet pirates have their warehouse somewhere on the next block? Right ahead?”
“Yes. You heard me,” Xeegan answered. Make your point, his expression said.
“We need to think about how we’re going to approach. We probably should have been stealthier for the past few blocks if we’re already this close. What if one of the trucks that drove by…”
Xeegan knit his brow, seemingly not out of annoyance but as if “stealth” was something he honestly hadn’t considered. “If there are any guards, I’ll just take them out,” he said after a moment. “And Zorq can jump in if we need backup.”
Kira blinked at him. She tried to figure out what Xeegan was saying. “You want… to just go in there? Walk through the front door?”
“No,” he said, his tone mocking as if he thought she was an idiot. “We’ll go in a back way. But there’s no need to slow ourselves down and try to hide. We’re walking into an unknown warehouse. We’ll probably be discovered anyway.”
“We need to watch the warehouse before trying to go inside,” Kira said, her voice nearly cracking in disbelief. “To estimate how many pirates might be inside. Maybe we could even find out all the information we need without ever entering. At the very least, we should conduct surveillance for a whole twenty-four hours to find out what the schedule for the operation is like, so we know when the best time to enter would be.”
Before she finished her last sentence, Xeegan had started walking again. Away from her, and their conversation. Now, her blood was boiling for a reason that had nothing to do with those strong hands, and everything to do with his infuriating attitude.
“Come back here,” she said, exasperated. “We’re planning!”
“I told you,” he called over his shoulder. “No need to slow ourselves down.”
This was already a disaster. She didn’t want this day to end with watching Xeegan get himself killed by some trigger-happy pirate guard. She didn’t want to get killed by some trigger-happy pirate guard.
Kira sighed. Even if she couldn’t control how Xeegan approached this lead, she could at least make sure she was being somewhat cautious. She kind of liked Zorq’s strategy of observing the situation from above, but that wouldn’t help until she actually knew which warehouse to observe. It would be bad to accidentally set up surveillance on the roof of the very warehouse she was trying to find.
As they made it onto the block of warehouses surrounding the dilapidated microprocessor factory, Kira stayed in the shadows. A narrow, shaded gravel pathway opened up between two buildings and she took cover. The factory was straight across from her, and she had a perfect view of the buildings on each side.
She was about to take her binoculars out of her backpack when she noticed movement outside the squat tan warehouse to the left of the microprocessor plant. A Mehelian male ambled slowly out of the alley next to the warehouse and onto the sidewalk. His hand rested on the bulge of some weapon at his hip.
Yes!
This was it. The warehouse was next to the landmark the old pirate had described, and was being guarded by at least one Mehelian pirate. There was no doubt.
Kira was about to take note of the time that the guard was walking by so she could start building a schedule of the guards’ movements, when Xeegan crossed the street.
Her jaw dropped as she watched him march forward. The Ezak-X confidently strode to the guard who had already turned away to make another lap around the building. The Mehelian didn’t even see Xeegan coming.
He took the Mehelian by the neck and slammed the guard’s bald head into the metal siding of the building. The guard slid to the ground, unconscious, leaving a thin trail of bright red blood down the siding. Kira’s heart jumped.
What the hell was Xeegan thinking?
There could be who knew how many more guards watching. And they had just left a major clue that someone was infiltrating the warehouse.
Kira considered just abandoning this lead and letting Xeegan get himself killed, when the pirate turned toward where she was hiding and motioned for her to follow. He didn’t wait and turned the corner toward where the guard had been walking.
Fuck… Should she go? Xeegan was clearly insane and she might be risking the whole operation because of this. But on the other hand, what if there really was something to investigate? She bit her lip, debating for a moment. She couldn’t really just leave him, could she?
Shit… There was no wasting another second. The wounded guard could be discovered at any moment, and then what? Kira quickly used her wristband to report her coordinates to Agent Grimmor, but didn’t give any other details about what her plan was. She didn’t even know what her plan was.
First, making sure there were no trucks coming or previously unseen guards as far as she could tell, Kira dashed across the street and into the gap between buildings that Xeegan had disappeared into… and nearly ran straight into him again.
He was waiting for her in the shadows just feet from the sidewalk, outside of a plain metal door with a couple of concrete steps leading up to it. The door seemed to have no doorknob or any other opening mechanism – it must only open from the inside.
“A side door,” he said in a low voice.
“I can see that,” Kira whispered back. “I take it you want to go in?”
Xeegan nodded. “I don’t hear any footsteps or voices in the vicinity,” he said. “There’s
no one behind that door. At least not nearby.”
Of course, Xeegan could be more confident in situations like this, Kira reminded herself. He knew if someone was sneaking up on him from yards away. A closed door like this didn’t represent the unknown for him, it was just an annoying barrier.
“Do you hear anything else? Guards or anyone who isn’t nearby?”
Xeegan tilted his head. “There’s a lot of noise coming from deep in there, but I can’t make out any footsteps or speech. It’s too muddled. And none of it close.”
“Okay,” Kira mused. Maybe this wasn’t as harebrained a mission as she had originally thought. Xeegan might actually turn out to be a useful partner instead of a liability. Except… “Just don’t knock any more guards out like that, please? If you knew there was no one else nearby, why not just wait for him to pass and then sneak in?”
Xeegan shrugged. “One less ugly bald alien we need to worry about,” he said, as if his roughness was the most natural thing in the world. He put two hands on the doors, fingers spread wide, apparently about to try to push it in.
“Wait!” Kira said. He looked at her impatiently. “What about Zorq? I just want to know what his plan is before we go. Is he coming in?”
“He likes to keep guard,” Xeegan said. He grunted and pushed at the metal door, making a dent around each hand but not yet separating it from its hinges.
Kira looked back out at the street. The silhouette of Zorq’s huge form was obvious to her on the roof of the building across from them, since she knew what to look for. Anyone else driving by would just see a lumpy shadow.
“At least he’s got the right idea,” she said, but the barb at Xeegan’s insistence they go straight in seemed to go over his head.
She had to admit, having Zorq stay on the adjacent building made her feel a little better – at least if things went wrong, they had someone on the outside.
The grating sound of metal ripping away from metal made her jump, and she looked back at Xeegan. He had pushed the door inward, into the building, but thankfully had grabbed it by the sides to make sure it didn’t clatter onto the floor and make any more noise. The pirate gently set the door down, stepped around it, and again motioned for Kira to follow.
Crap. There really was no going back now.
She went in after Xeegan, avoided stepping on the door as well, and took in their new surroundings.
The side door had led them into a wide, well-lit hallway with a concrete floor. Paired scuff marks on the concrete told her that some kind of wheeled contraption was regularly brought through here.
To their right was a pair of double doors with a large, boxy locking mechanism binding them together in the middle. The big lock had what looked like a scanning camera at the top, probably for IDs or maybe irises if the pirates were sophisticated. Nothing was getting in those double doors that wasn’t authorized.
Kira looked to the left, the direction that Xeegan had apparently already decided to head without talking to her first. Fuck. He was already halfway up a flight of metal stairs. Okay then…
She sprinted up the stairs, trying to keep up with Xeegan’s long gait. He stopped at the next landing, outside another nondescript door. This one did have a doorknob, thankfully.
“A lot of that noise is coming from there,” Xeegan said in such a low voice that she nearly had to read his lips. The sight of his fangs peeking out, just barely visible as he spoke, made her heart leap. She wasn’t used to that yet.
“Right behind the door?” she asked, her voice just as quiet. Even she could hear the muffled bumps, scrapes, and thuds of what sounded like large objects being moved around.
Xeegan shook his head. “Beneath us,” he mouthed. “It’s quiet right behind the door. I think it leads to some kind of a walkway that overlooks the main warehouse.”
That actually sounded perfect. If they could get a peek at the going-ons of the warehouse from a good vantage point…
“Let’s go in.”
“You don’t want to keep sneaking?” Xeegan asked, clearly teasing her. “Just quietly go up and down the stairs a few times? It would be safer.”
Kira rolled her eyes, ignoring him, and tried the doorknob. To her surprise, the door responded, opening an inch. She peeked through the crack. Xeegan had been right. There was no one in sight, but the door did open to a metal walkway.
She let the door swing all the way open and crouched down, crawling onto the walkway, hiding behind the railing. The walkway was right next to some pipes and wires that lined the wall of the warehouse. It must be some kind of a maintenance route.
The railing on her right was made of a metal mesh. It wasn’t complete cover, but it would do just fine if they didn’t make any noise to get the attention of the pirates in the warehouse below. That wouldn’t be too hard: the work going on below was so noisy that they would have to set off a small bomb to call attention to themselves.
Plus, the mesh of the railing was perfect to watch what went on below. As soon as Kira had crawled forward enough to give Xeegan room to crouch behind the railing, she basically glued her face to the mesh and looked down.
They were about fifty feet above the floor of a gigantic warehouse filled with shelves, boxes, and huge industrial equipment of some kind, much of it wrapped in plastic and in pieces.
Ten or fifteen workers were moving around the warehouse, pushing boxes on dollies, counting items on shelves, or unwrapping materials. As Kira watched, two pirates guided a truck through a garage entrance in the back of the building. Several workers headed their way and started unloading crates from the truck.
One Mehelian pirate seemed to be in charge. He directed the workers on where to put the crates, barking at them to hurry up.
“I spoke to him about this job,” Xeegan said, leaning in so he was muttering straight into her ear. There was no other way she would be able to hear him over the sounds of the warehouse, but his breath made the hairs on her neck stand up.
She scooted an inch away from him. With his senses, she knew he could hear her just fine without her needing to get too close.
“The Mehelian?”
Xeegan nodded.
“Anyone else you recognize?”
“I know some of the faces of the pirates who are working,” he said, getting close to her again. This time, she forced herself to stay put, even as the closeness of his lips to her ear nearly made her shiver.
“We’re in the right place,” Kira said, partially to herself. “But I don’t see…” She was about to say “human women.” “Any sign of your Ezak-X friend,” she finished instead. “They’re just holding materials of some kind here. This isn’t the off-planet pirate’s main base.”
“What are those materials though?” Xeegan asked thoughtfully. “Everything’s in boxes or wrapped up. I can’t tell.”
They both spent another minute watching the busy scene beneath them in silence. Then, the hired pirates started to open the crates and unload the contents onto shelves. Kira squinted, trying to make out what the small objects were.
“Vials,” Xeegan said, seeing her struggle. Again, his heightened senses were coming in handy.
“Like… medical?”
Xeegan shrugged.
A group of pirates pried open another crate and they started to unload bags of something marked with an unmistakable orange skull and crossbones design. Hazardous materials? What the hell was all this for?
Kira continued watching in silence. A minute later, she noticed pieces of some machinery being pulled out, and her breath nearly stopped in her throat. Those industrial-looking machines. The test tubes, the chemicals… This was lab equipment. Expensive, state of the art lab equipment.
It made no sense. The off-planet pirates were hiring Rialan pirates to work in a warehouse transporting laboratory equipment. And not just a couple of machines, or the small lab set-up some pirates used to make illegal drugs. This was on a huge scale, and the machinery was like Kira had never seen before.
The client who had hired the off-planet pirate must be paying a fortune for this operation. But even as they watched the pirates work beneath them, the question still remained.
Why?
And what the hell did this have to do with the missing human women? Did it have anything to do with them? Nothing here hinted at slavery or human trafficking. There wasn’t even a single human pirate down there working in the warehouse.
A disturbing idea wormed its way into Kira’s thoughts. What if the missing human women were the reason for all of this equipment? What if they were the subjects of some kind of messed up experiments?
Kira started to feel a little nauseous. She had seen enough. This was plenty to report to Agent Grimmor.
“Move,” she whispered at Xeegan. The huge, crouching Ezak-X blocked her path to the door.
“What?” he said, not moving a muscle.
“I’m leaving,” she said.
“You can’t leave now. We haven’t found out anything about the off-planet pirates except that they have a warehouse, and they’re using it. No sign of Zeon. We need to search around more.”
“Let me past,” Kira said. She didn’t feel like explaining her thought process to him – not that she was going to tell him about the missing human women anyway. And she especially didn’t want to get into a whole discussion when they were hiding on a flimsy service walkway right above everyone they were spying on.
When Xeegan still didn’t move, Kira just glared at him. She looked straight into his dark eyes, her expression determined.
“Suit yourself,” Xeegan said finally. “But you better tell me what you’re thinking when we’re outside.”
He spoke as if she owed him access to all her thoughts and theories. Whatever. She could surprise him by not catering to his arrogance once they were safely far away from whatever this operation was.
Xeegan pressed himself against the wall, letting her move by between him and the railing. She crawled through the still-open door, and straightened up to a standing position as soon as she was back on the landing. She could hear Xeegan following behind her, but she didn’t wait.
Ready to draw any of the many weapons she had hidden on her body if a pirate surprised her at the bottom of the stairs, she gingerly made her way down the stairs. The short hallway that led to the locked double doors was still empty.