She retreated a step or two and instinctively he extended his hand to stop her, receiving a mild shock from the force field in the process. Swearing, he shook his hand to ease the pain and tingling. “Keshara, wait. Please.”
Turning, she glanced at his hand as if to reassure herself he was uninjured then, with an annoyed shake of the head, she said, “What more can you possibly have to say to me?”
“I’m sorry for being a suspicious jerk, okay? I thought it was better to clear the air between us. I believe you.” Gabe wanted this encounter with her to last as long as he could prolong the time. Seeing her, being close to her, was satisfying a deep seated need he never even knew he had before. Like a piece of him had been missing without his realizing it, and now Keshara’d completed the picture. “You can say something insulting and outrageous to me now.”
Her lips twitched as if she was fighting not to grin. “Which I have a feeling would do no good whatsoever. You’d make a joke and let the insult roll from your back.”
“Well, yeah, probably. Forgive me?”
“Why are you here, in the cell block?” She did come closer to the force barrier again, which he counted as a victory.
“The Director decided to question me over dinner.” He shrugged. “Don’t know that I’m going to eat. I hope she’s not planning to make me her main course.”
“Always the jokes.” She sighed theatrically. “The Director doesn’t believe in wasting time because she has so much research to carry out. She commonly has business discussions while she eats. You won’t be dining so I hope you’re not hungry.”
“Yeah, Raeblin over there filled me up with the wretched gruel less than an hour ago so I’m good.”
Keshara fiddled with the fasteners on her outfit, which consisted of a soft blue top with long sleeves over a dusty pink T shirt and a pair of utility pants. No beige jumpsuit for her. Gabe was glad to see even if she was in a cell, she wasn’t being treated like the prisoners in the other Khagrish labs. “I was so jealous my friends got to take care of you. I offered to help, but my volunteering gave Ashla another excuse to beat me. Raeblin and Palinna kept me apprised of your progress. I—I missed taking care of you.”
“I wish you’d been there.” He realized he’d told more truth than he intended. “Listen, I’ll try to get permission to come talk to you another time, but any advice on dealing with the Director?”
Keshara studied his face. “She disdains flattery, or so she says, but actually she thrives on it. She’s proud of her scientific accomplishments. She’s ruthless and cold, even to Ashla, the First Daughter. Don’t trust her.”
“If I had a credit for every time I’ve heard that before on this damn planet, I’d buy the place.” He laughed. “Ok, got it, she’s the typical egotistical Khagrish bitch.”
“Enough talk, we must go,” Slibb called out. “I’m not taking punishment for you being late to the dining room.” He waved one arm in a beckoning gesture. “Come here, prisoner.”
“I gotta go, hang in there.” Again he wished he could touch her to offer comfort but contact was impossible so he settled for a smile before moving to join the others. Raeblin left them at the next junction of corridors, making him consider yet again what the underlying dynamic here was. What role did the Badari women play and how could he leverage that to make his escape?
CHAPTER THREE
Slibb and his silent companion conducted him into a better area of the complex, more upscale, with wooden paneling and what he assumed was alien abstract art on the walls. They passed no one, and Gabe saw no other signs of life.
“This place is pretty deserted,” he said, fishing for information.
Slibb made a dismissive noise. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Taking the tech’s reaction as a promising beginning, he posed another question. “Been here long?”
Now the other Khagrish, who’d been silent the whole time, laughed, and the sound held a note of hysteria that scraped at Gabe’s nerve endings.
Slibb stopped, pulling his companion to a halt and gave him a low voiced tongue lashing.
Gabe’s blood fired with anticipation. Now. The guards were distracted. The corridor empty. Breathing fast, he whirled and attacked the two men, knocking them both to the floor unconscious in a flurry of well-aimed, punishing blows.
Squatting by his victims, he grabbed the neurocontroller and removed the bracelet from his wrist. He rifled Slibb’s pockets for anything else useful and extracted an identity card he hoped would give access to other areas of the complex. He compared his foot to the tech’s boots and sighed in regret. The flimsy flip flops he was wearing were basically useless, but his feet were much bigger than either of theirs.
The clock running in his head said he needed to get out of there. “Give my regrets to the Director for missing dinner.” He sprinted the way they’d come originally and ducked into the first side corridor he found. The place was a maze, but Gabe built a mental map as he went. Most of the rooms he passed were unlocked or with the doors standing open, but there was nothing useful inside, only dusty furniture and equipment under protective covers. So far it was a close copy of the standard Khagrish labs the pack had taken down in the lowlands.
After about ten minutes, sirens began whooping in the direction he’d come from.
Moving rapidly, he kept heading in a direction he hoped would lead to an exterior door, based on the layout of other Khagrish labs he’d been in, starting with the one where he’d been imprisoned . The siren continued to blare in the distance, but he detected no pursuit in his immediate vicinity. Still, time had to be limited for moving freely.
Doors lay ahead and he broke into a run, skidding to a halt in a darkened, empty lobby area. Through the reinforced glass portal he watched a raging blizzard blowing outside, the wind sending the snow sideways. There was no visibility at all. Walking to the portal with frustration eating at him, he touched the glass and felt the cold surface vibrating from the force of the wind. I’d probably fall off the damn mountain right before I froze to death. Glancing at his thin jumpsuit and the open toed flip flops, he grimaced. Sure he was trained in survival techniques, but no amount of training in the world could overcome those odds.
He wondered if this facility had any flyers, not that he could get one aloft in this storm. They’d come after Keshara on foot when she escaped, but the fact didn’t mean there were no aircraft. Resolving to keep an eye out for any hint of a landing pad or a hangar area, he backed away from the door.
Not wasting time on regrets, Gabe veered into a side corridor, ducked into the next open room, and quietly closed the door. Hands on his hips, he eyed the ventilation grate high on the wall with no enthusiasm.
To his knowledge on at least two other occasions humans had evaded the Khagrish with differing degrees of success by taking to the ventilation system in a lab. Hopefully, the enemy here was unaware of the human technique. The labs were built to hold full grown Badari males prisoner, and Gabe, although broad shouldered for a human, didn’t come close to the scale of a Badari. Grabbing a chair, he climbed to the grate and began working at the fastenings.
If he could find the armory, he’d grab weapons and maybe he’d be lucky enough to stumble over some better clothes, including outdoor gear. Keshara had proper clothing and supplies, and she seemed to know where she was going. She’ll make a good ally. Not examining his adamant decision to make a dangerous trip to the Badari woman’s cell to rescue her when he had a clear-cut opportunity of success at escaping alone, because the choice felt correct right down to his bones, he climbed into the shaft. Replacing the grate, he started the mind numbing crawl in search of what he needed to escape.
At some point during his travels through the ventilation system, the building-wide alarm was silenced, but he detected no signs of any pursuit or any attempt to find him. He stayed away from the two areas where he’d been before, which were populated, and concentrated on the rest of the lab. Everywhere the place was empty, as if
He came to a branch of the shaft leading in another direction, to an expansion of the facility not common to the other two labs he’d experienced. These Khagrish weren’t making full use of the facility they did have, so why the need for extra space? Could the landing pad and flyer hangar be in this direction? Those would be worth finding.
What the hell, I’m not doing anything else, why not check things out? The blizzard was in full force outside and he was effectively trapped so why not explore and gather useful intelligence on this weird setup? He couldn’t make a move to free Keshara until he was ready to execute a well-designed exfil strategy and get them both away from the facility. If he pulled her from the cell too soon, they’d both be too easy to recapture.
As he moved quietly, crawling in the shaft, he reflected with a grin he was like one of the classic tiny, furry lab animals, moving through tunnels in its cage, no doubt feeling free but still kept within a larger enclosure. Yup, that’s me. The Khagrish must figure I’m trapped in the building due to the blizzard, and I can’t prove them wrong. The arrogant fools think they have all the time in the world to dig me out.
Light shone ahead through the vents, and heightened his caution about making noise. The first room he came to was empty. There was a desk in the center, with a big cozy chair, three computers humming, and walls covered with handwritten abstruse scientific notations. The writing looked to him like equations maybe, interspersed with scribbled comments. His translator implant had acquired the Khagrish language informally during his time on the planet and extended to the spoken word only, not writing. In any case, he was no math or science expert, although being a qualified interstellar pilot, he had a good grasp of fundamentals beyond the ordinary person. The formulae started at the far side of the room and covered maybe two thirds of the available wall space. The writing was crisp and well formed in the early segments, becoming more and more sloppy and squiggly until the part nearest him resembled nothing so much as the gibberish scribbles of a child.
Gabe wished he had a way to record the calculations in some fashion, to give to MARL, the Artificial Intelligence at the sanctuary valley. This was data indeed, in its rarest true form.
But meaningless to him today.
He eyed the computers but wasn’t tempted to leave the relative safety of the vents. Unlike Jill Garrison, the Alpha’s human mate, he was no hacker. He couldn’t gain control of the entire facility through its network. Pity.
Sound coming from the door alerted him, and he scuttled quickly past the grate opening, then maneuvered awkwardly within the tight confines of the shaft to peer into the room.
Dr. Farahnnim was in the act of closing the portal, moving to the chair. She dropped the handheld she was carrying on the desk, donned a fresh lab coat, and selected a marker from a holder on the desk. Tapping it against her lips and muttering, she walked slowly to where the scribblings ended and studied them, head tilted. With her free hand, she let loose the braid at the end of her spiky hairstyle and played with the tendrils. Suddenly, she darted forward to add three big dots to the wall, followed by a loopy line. The Khagrish seemed to be enjoying watching the color flow from the pen onto the wall, making an extra curlicue and adding an accent. She stepped close to sniff the ink or whatever substance she was using.
With a laugh she tossed the pen on the desk. “Arrogant science council members will bow before my brilliance when I reveal these results. No one has ever explored the topics I’ve uncovered, much less made the break throughs I’ve achieved.” Her amusement was long and satisfied, quenched only when she picked up a mug of some liquid and drank. Farahnnim moved to sit in the chair, laid her head on the desk and was soon snoring.
No wonder the Khagrish do such sloppy science, if this is how they develop their theories. Sure he’d learn nothing else, Gabe ruled out an attempt to capture her as a hostage. The bolts on the grate were old and frozen in place. The noise he’d have to make would awaken her long before he entered the room, and she’d have time to flee, pull out a hidden weapon, or call for help. He could always return here later. She apparently came to this office often. He could loosen the damn bolts while she wasn’t present and ambush her if he decided he needed a hostage.
Onward he crawled, in a particularly long section of the shaft, as if the room he was moving alongside of was huge. Light spilled into the vent ahead, so he expected another office perhaps, or a barracks room, certainly some Khagrish presence. The sight that met his eyes was unexpected.
The room appeared to be a huge medlab, bathed in soothing dim light, while a number of machines and displays flashed numbers in green, red, and blue. Machinery made soft sounds. What had Gabe riveted was the sight of six pods arrayed in a circle at the center of the space, surrounding a complicated apparatus reaching from floor to ceiling. Each pod had a clear lid, all of which were closed. Cables and tubes ran from the central fixture to the pods standing on a sturdy pedestal. Each pod was large enough to hold a Badari male, who typically stood over seven feet tall and weighed in at around 300 pounds of solid muscle. From his vantage point he couldn’t see all the pods, but the ones in his field of vision were occupied by Badari women, all roughly the same age as Keshara, lying motionless, eyes closed.
Dead? In a coma?
Gabe swallowed hard and debated his course of action. Glancing at the door, which was firmly closed, he undid the fasteners for the grate, working slowly and patiently so as to make the minimal amount of noise. Before he opened the barrier, he made a visual check of the corners of the room as best he could and saw no vidcams or other sensors. He swung down from the vent, leaving the annoying flipflops in the duct and dropped to the floor soundlessly on bare feet. The first thing he did was grab a sturdy stool and position it so if he had to leave in a hurry, he could vault to the grate from that precarious perch.
He crept to the pods. As he’d thought, only three were in use. Each woman lay on her back, hair spread out in a fan under her. They appeared to be naked, although sheets had been drawn over their bodies to the shoulders. The Badari lay so still he wanted to believe the women were in cryo sleep or possibly even preserved corpses, but the monitors were plainly tracking life functions. The women were beautiful, with high cheek bones and symmetrical features and he remembered his friend Jadrian had told him once the Badari were bred to be appealing to humans at the request of the alien customers, who wanted to use the genetically engineered men against the humans of the Sectors in various ways, not just combat. He shuddered, thinking of Keshara, who was even more beautiful to his eyes, being deployed in such a fashion, as a tool for others for waging war. Although these women in front of him were undeniable stunners, he felt only pity for them, no attraction, unlike the way he’d instantly been drawn to his rescuer, despite being mortally wounded at the time.
Keshara’s special.
He studied the trio of unconscious women, who weren’t moving at all, not even flickering eyelids to signify dreams or the slightest rise and fall of a chest to indicate breathing. As he watched, a vile yellow cloud of vapor was injected into each pod by a robo arm swinging from the central console, hovering over each pod long enough to add the vapor to the atmosphere inside the pod and move on, before snapping into a receptacle in the main column when its task was done.
Gabe was tempted to tap on the clear surface of one of the pods, but he refrained. What was he going to do if he did manage to awaken one of these trapped Badari? He examined the device top to bottom but found no way to unlatch the lid. There was a boxlike attachment that might be the locking device but no hint of what it would take to activate.
The yellow mist was fading in each pod now. He speculated whether the vapor had delivered nutrients? Or drugs perhaps?
This is one fucking weird set up.
For sure he’d never seen anything like it in the labs he’d been involved with destroying, nor had Aydarr or any members of the pack described such a thing to him.
Gabe hoped this wasn’t the lab annex Keshara had spoken of being sent to, although he had a sinking feeling it might be. Nothing good was going on here, he was sure.
An alarm or sensor of some kind went off, and he was halfway to the vent in a heartbeat, kicking the stool sideways so it ended up well removed from the vent area as soon. As soon as he had a good grip on the edge of the shaft he hauled himself into the opening and pulled the grate closed behind him.
Once safe, he took time to observe what was happening in the room he’d vacated. Another arm had deployed from the central machinery, with a tip like a giant suction cup. As he watched, this new robo poised itself above the closest pod, lowering until a seal was made between its tip and the clear cover. A probe suddenly extended into the pod, piercing the woman’s chest in a move that made Gabe clench his jaw and fist his hands on his knees, wishing he could help her. A thin stream of glittering, colorless motes moved from her body into the probe and into the clear robo arm, eventually flowing into the big floor to ceiling pillar and disappearing.
Deciding he wanted to understand this process as best he could, he lowered himself into the medlab and approached the mechanism as the probe moved on to the next pod. When he walked around the pillar this time, another section opened and the fluid or essence extracted from the woman sat in a clear container, glowing as if it was full of diamonds. Or opals from Old Terra perhaps. A thin tube ran from the container into the inner workings of the machine and, as he stood there, the motes from the second woman suddenly added themselves to the total. He returned to the occupied pods and rechecked the status of the captives.
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