by R. K. Thorne
“Even with me what?” he demanded.
“This is hard for me, okay?” She met his gaze, eyes wild.
“What is?”
“Kael, after everything I gave up to—”
The air split with the sound of glass shattering. A sudden breeze whipped at her hair, pulling toward the living room.
He was ducking as quickly as she grabbed the handheld, but shots were already flying. Ballistics bounced past. Why the frag did he take off his armor?
She, of course, was still wearing hers. The zip-crash of ballistics rang out, the far kitchen cabinets suddenly punched through with gunfire.
Pain exploded in his left shoulder, close to the collarbone. Shit. Another bullet ricocheted, buzzing past his temple in a streak of fire. He fell back against the bar and slid down.
She was crouched beside him, checking the handheld. He couldn’t see it, partially because of the angle and partly because somehow blood was running into his eye. He squeezed a hand to the side of his head. “Did you see how many?” she barked.
“Drecks, agh.” He groaned. “No, I was distracted.”
Pain shot into her expression, and an edge of panic, and he regretted the words instantly. With his better arm he reached over and hit her helmet retract, and it rose up around her. More shattering came from out in the living room, behind him now. More gunfire. More than one hostile, that much was for sure.
She pulled the pistol from her leg compartment and edged up to the top of the bar. He assumed she fired, although the laser was silent so he couldn’t tell. Cursing and wild thrashing erupted near the living room windows.
God, Persad was really going to be glad to be rid of them at this rate. What was it with these people and high-rise windows? Did they have a death wish? Or was it just the least secure place in a building like this? Ellen sank back down beside him and started rummaging in a cabinet. The room spun strangely, her figure shifting like the Osiris had suddenly regained a foothold. What the hell?
When she spoke again, her voice was much calmer than her eyes through the clear visor. “I thought ‘distracted’ was just a bad excuse.”
“It is, you coward.” His voice was like rocks in a centrifuge. “But the blood in my eye is making me come around.”
Nova shuffled backward into their area. “Six hostiles remaining, Commander, and—” She sported Kael on the ground. “Shit.” She bent to her comm. “Jenny, get to the kitchen ASAP.”
“I’m with Persad, they’re closing in here. Fell back to the study, returning fire. I will when the path is cleared.”
Ellen cursed. “Go help her.”
“I’m helping her from right here, dammit,” Nova shot back. As if to prove her point, a sharp cry echoed from outside, followed by a thud and another window crashing.
Ellen finally found what she was looking for in the cabinet and pressed a handful of kitchen towels to his shoulder, then another to his temple. “God, they didn’t even have the decency to give you clotting nanos. Jesus.”
He gave up trying to hold the wound, slumping back against the bar and letting her take over. “Too expensive for overpriced security guards, I guess.”
“That’s not what you were.”
“No. It’s not what I am now.” Thanks to you, he thought silently.
“Not just thanks to me.”
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Stay with me, Asidian. Jenny!”
“Jesus, he’s bad with names. Jesus, you have me saying Jesus.”
“Stay with me or you’re on ship-guarding duty indefinitely.”
“Please no.” In spite of her threat, he was fading. The spinning was worse now. He hadn’t thought the bullet had nicked him that hard. Or was it the cocktail of Osiris and whiskey and gin and… He shut his eyes. Something was not right. “Not ship duty. Anything but that.”
“Relax, we got bigger problems right now.” The pressure of her hands reassured him, easing him further into the blackness.
“Three hostiles remaining,” Nova reported, somewhere far away.
“I want to be with you. Not the ship.”
“I know, Kael. I know.”
“Don’t leave me…” Behind, he meant to say, but he wasn’t sure he said it. Don’t leave me behind.
“I won’t.”
Chapter Twelve
“What is your name?”
The dead eyes of the man tied to the chair stared straight ahead, not reacting. Not even blinking. He wore completely nondescript, generic black fatigues, with no signs, insignia, or even labels from their maker. His boots were almost immaculately clean. His head was shaved. Ellen hadn’t stripped him yet, but there were no visible tattoos. He had the physique—and anonymous appearance—of a competent soldier or even a hit man and not a single identifying item on him. Except one thing.
“Who do you work for?” she demanded now.
Ellen held his breather helmet in her armored hands, turning it this way and that, even though she’d long exhausted it of any clues. There was only one: the blue cephalopod stamped into the metal on one side. Why anyone would label them all the same was anyone’s guess. Why were they blue instead of white? Why indeed.
Why did everything lead back to her? Or was it them?
“What were you doing invading this residence?” she drawled again. It might have been the tenth time she’d asked. Or the hundredth.
“Nothing.” Jenny looked up from the tablet. “Readouts showing little to no neurological activity. It’s surprising he’s breathing.”
“Where the hell is security? Shouldn’t they be up here wondering what is happening, with all the glass and bodies flying past a good hundred stories of windows?”
Jenny pursed her lips. “Definitely, especially in an expensive building like this.”
Ellen bent to stare directly into the man’s blank eyes. They were brown, with little flecks of gold and a fairly thick black ring around the outside. Not especially dilated. There had been a human here once. A man, presumably with hopes and dreams, or at the very least food preferences, memories, old grudges. Somehow, all of it was gone. The eyes just stared. “It’s like they switched him off,” she whispered.
Jenny nodded. “He’s a vegetable, if you ask me. I can’t get much from blood here, though. Could be a drug of some sort. We could learn more if we were on the ship.”
Straightening, she slapped him straight across the face with the full force of her arm. The man’s head whipped to the side and a little down. And stayed there. He didn’t react to pain whatsoever.
The chair under Jenny skidded out as she jumped hastily to her feet. “Hey!”
Ellen held up both palms to signify she was done.
“Whoa—you’re not normally so brutal, Commander.”
“Just testing a theory. Seeing if he’d react.” She forced a deep breath and was pissed to find it shaky. “Sorry. I’m a little off my game.”
“Kael’s gonna be fine.”
She shot a glare at the floor. Jenny thought she was angry at the man for being one of the ones to shoot Kael, and maybe there was a little truth in that. But what was really getting under her skin was something far worse—the sinking feeling that Kael had narrowly missed this fate himself. How many people were out there, switched off like this?
It didn’t make sense, except in the horrified part of her mind where it did.
“It’s just a little damage to his scrubber unit that made it go wonky so quickly. It hadn’t had time to dump the shit it had hoarded in there. What were all those drugs doing in his system anyway?”
“Josana, apparently. From what he said, they weren’t his idea. They were in the air in her apartment.”
Jenny’s eyes widened. “Now I’m doubly glad I didn’t go. Sorry, by the way.”
Ellen waved her off. “She’s out of our hair. We’ve got bigger problems to deal with.” She pointed at the man and his still turned head. “He wasn’t like this during the attack.”
“No, he wasn�
��t. He clearly had some ambulatory capability at the very least when he scaled down the building and crashed into the windows.”
“How did they break the windows?”
“Probably had the right equipment. Not that hard to get if you know where to look.”
Ellen smiled slightly to herself, thinking of the time she’d told Kael nearly the same thing, and bent to study the man again. She turned his chin back to a more natural, comfortable position. He remained there, like a wire doll.
The door chimed.
“Come in,” she said. The door slid open to reveal Adan, Nova hovering at his shoulder.
“Found something.” Adan stepped inside and dropped a black rectangular pouch beside Jenny’s computer. He flipped it open.
“That’s an inspector’s ID,” Jenny said quickly.
“Udo Trynkei,” Adan read aloud. “Inspector, illegal substances division.”
“Do you think it’s real?” Jenny breathed.
Adan shook his head. “Persad’s clean. Real law enforcement wouldn’t come through windows. Unless they do things differently here?” He raised his eyebrows. “Most civilized places, they show up at the door with papers. Uncivilized places, they show up at the door with guns. And they don’t knock.”
“I’m suddenly feeling very uncivilized,” Nova muttered.
“Windows are only on Capital?” Jenny smiled. “We are special here. In a bad way.”
“Windows are for the creative.” Adan flipped through the wallet, but it didn’t reveal much else. “And for Udo Trynkei.”
“So if he’s not working for Capital police,” Nova asked, “then who is he working for?”
“Who do you think?” Ellen shook her head. “My money’s on Arakovic. Using the kid to get to the telepaths and his mom. That’s low.”
“Then why the demand for the schematics?” Jenny asked.
Adan put the ID back in his pocket. “Maybe it was just a decoy to keep her in place for the attack.”
“Commander and crew, I have some information that may be of use.” Xi’s voice piped up from Jenny’s tablet.
“She’s everywhere,” Nova stage-whispered toward Ellen. “It’s creepy.”
“It’s useful,” Ellen grunted. “What, Xi?”
“I have referenced Kael’s notes from yesterday evening’s altercation with our person of interest, Vivaan Persad. Armor cam footage was not available, so I cannot be certain, but—”
“Spit it out, Xi.”
“I am trying to, Commander. I believe Vivaan Persad identified his Capital law-enforcement handler to be none other than Udo Trynkei. Please confirm with Kael when he is able, but my certainty of this is at least eighty percent.”
“Thanks.”
“Shit, so the kid is getting played?” Nova said, giving her gum a crack.
Ellen repressed a wince. “That’s what Etrianala Kentt suspected. This would certainly bolster that theory.”
“Isn’t it kind of stupid to break in here with ID on you?” Jenny asked.
“Maybe they didn’t think they could lose,” Adan said, voice dark. “If Persad had been alone?”
Ellen bent and peered at the man again. “Or maybe they weren’t thinking so well. And maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this in front of him.”
“Him?” Jenny’s brow furrowed. “He’s not hearing us, trust me.”
“He is not who I’m worried about.” Ellen scowled down at the man. “Does he have a chip interface, by any chance?”
Jenny squinted back at the tablet, paged through a few things. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
Ellen rubbed her chin. “Wild guess. Jenny, go get Persad and tell her I want one of her chip prototypes installed in this guy. You got anything to sedate him?”
“You want him more sedated than this?” Jenny held out a hand at the man.
“I want him unconscious. His eyes are still open.”
“Whatever you say, Commander. I’ll get something, give me a minute.” She hurried out.
Ellen turned to Nova. “Get Mo and find something large you can put this guy in to make him look like luggage. I don’t care what. Smuggle him onto the ship.”
Adan raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that going to be tricky with customs down there?”
Nova grinned, popping her gum manically now. “Sounds fun.”
“Isn’t that… kidnapping?”
“Yes,” said Ellen. “So don’t get caught.”
Nova thumped a hand on Adan’s shoulder. “Don’t look so concerned. Back on St. Narcisa, I may have acquired a little experience with the activity.”
Adan’s eyebrows shot even higher. “Kidnapping?”
She rolled her eyes. “Smuggling. What’s a man or a melon?” Grinning, she headed out the door.
He turned and stared at Ellen. “I thought she was from Zega III.”
“She is. Zega III was originally a Vatican colony until organized crime stole much of the control. I believe the domes are named for saints from the Movers’ original nations.”
“So much more colorful than ‘failed farming colony,’ ” he said, smiling. His home world, Bantilla, had been the object of desire for big farming megacorps—until some pirates politely suggested that the outsystem wasn’t the best place for doing reliable business.
Ellen shrugged and folded her arms across her chest as she leaned back a little, studying their lone captive. “Neither of you had it easy.”
“And it’s not a contest anyway. So what now?” He put his hands in his pockets, his gaze, like Ellen’s, coming to rest on the man’s dead-eyed stare.
“Now we—” She bit off the words as the door chimed. “There’s our security. Stay in here. Lock this door and see if you can make it seem broken from the outside.” Ellen strode out into the hallway. Jenny and Chayana were headed toward her, the doctor carrying what looked like another chip but with her eyes on the door. Ellen held up a palm, drew the pistol, readied it, and eased up silently to the door display, hitting the view display button.
But it wasn’t security after all. A young man fidgeted on the view screen.
“Vivaan!” Chayana dashed forward toward the door. Ellen bid it to open but kept her weapon ready.
He stumbled inside, a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
He stared around the apartment. “Are you? When I was attacked, I worried—” He stopped short. “I see I was right. They came here too.”
“We have something to show you,” Ellen said briskly. “Adan, cancel that lock! We need to show Mr. Persad what you found.”
“Working on it,” came Adan’s voice, muffled by the door.
Vivaan’s gaze met hers, as if realizing she was there for the first time. “You’re… the woman from last night. Who bested the mech. From Elderflower. Where’s your friend?”
“He got shot defending your mother.” The words escaped before she’d really processed them, and the bitter edge surprised her.
Vivaan staggered a step back, and only then did she realize there was red blood hidden under the fingers clutching his shoulder. “Is he—is he—”
“He’ll be fine. Thanks to our medic.” She jutted a chin at his shoulder, and Chayana honed in like a guided missile, gasping. “Need someone to see to that?”
He nodded, numbly.
“Tell me,” she said. “Did you see any security on the way up? Were they at their posts?” She needed to know if they’d been taken out—or bought out. Were they passed out somewhere, drugged? Or reporting that Vivaan had just taken the elevator up here?
“No, actually. It seemed odd. Samesh is always downstairs at the desk this time of night.”
She blew out a little of her tension in a long breath, with a little guilt that Samesh’s loss might be her gain. At least that meant they didn’t need to immediately evacuate. Hopefully. They needed time to get their captive out unnoticed. No matter what she’d said, that wasn’t going to be easy.
Apparently finally free of
his own locks, Adan marched out of their interrogation room, the wallet in his hand. He held it out to Vivaan. “We suspect this means something to you?”
Vivaan took it with his free hand and let it fall open, eyes wide like saucers. Cursing, he met Ellen’s gaze. “Kentt was right. She tried to tell me, but I thought—”
“What did you do to your arm?” Chayana cried, catching sight now of the inflamed flesh beyond his wrist cuff.
“Mother, I can explain. It was important, and I didn’t want to implicate you.”
She gestured at the apartment. “And that worked out so well.”
He let out a sigh of frustration before training a determined gaze on Ellen. “We must talk to Kentt. Tell her what happened. Warn her. I know she knows more than she is telling me about the whereabouts of those women.”
“The chip blocks telepathy, not gives it to you,” Chaya chided.
“Yeah, that’s a different one,” Ellen muttered. “I don’t recommend it.”
Both Persads stopped and turned to eye her.
She cleared her throat. “Adan, get Etrianala Kentt on the line, if you can. I know it’s the middle of the night, but try. Use this.” She found the card in her suit belt and handed it to him.
“On it.”
When Adan was gone, Ellen pinned them both with a sharp stare. “Mr. Persad, I came to your mother with an offer. It extends to you too. I think it’s about time we discussed it.”
Adan spent the night tossing and turning, more than a little disturbed. Aside from dreams about orange groves, other things taunted him. Guilt, for one, that he’d barely been broken up with Josana for a day before these… other thoughts… had intruded. He’d also accidentally kept that packet of Osiris—how idiotic he hadn’t forced her to take it back while she was still around. Now what was he supposed to do with it? He couldn’t leave it here and get either of the Persads in trouble. And he really didn’t think the inspectors were going to be as morally and legally flexible as Josana assured him they would be. He could flush it. About as easily as he could flush ten thousand credits—which was to say, not easily at all.