Gabe
Page 15
After thirty seconds the motion faded, and the room slowly reverted to normal.
“Scary stuff,” Slibb said as he advanced through the aisle toward Gabe. “But we’ve had bad swarms of quakes before and nothing ever came of them.”
To Gabe that piece of information was more alarming. If the mountain under them was working up to an eruption, the fact this wasn’t the first time in recent history the volcano had shown its temper indicated to him pressure was building. “This place of yours is a disaster waiting to happen on so many levels.”
“Won’t be your concern once the Director has you in modified stasis for the rest of your extended life span. You’ll sleep like a baby while she takes all the cells she needs to create more daughters to generate more elixir extract.” Slibb brought a nutrient machine over to the table. He wasted no time in punching a port into Gabe’s arm and started the feed. “I hope you’re ready for a lot of exercise this afternoon since it’s probably the last you’ll ever get.”
Ready to make a break for freedom as soon as you let me off this damn table. Gabe bottled up his rebellious answer and stayed silent as the room rocked under them again, although more briefly. Whatever Slibb had the machine pumping into his veins was like cold burning acid as it traversed his body. He did feel more energetic once the fluid had been circulating for a while.
“Is he ready yet?” Farahnnim and Blanggin walked through the door, arm in arm. The Director moved to her desk on the heels of her impatient question. “I have a long panel of tests to run before he goes to his cell for the night.”
“Sure, doctor.” Slibb powered down the machine attached to Gabe, and he could tell the tech didn’t care if the process was completed or not. “I fed all the data you requested into your personal uplink.”
Gabe endured while the port was removed, readying himself for the break he planned to make.
Branggin came closer. “Hit him with the neurocontroller, short burst. I want his full attention.”
“No!” Farahnnim’s counter order was immediate and sharp, and Gabe was thankful Slibb didn’t have time to execute the command. “I need him to be baseline normal, not trying to shake off the effects of a stunner or the bracelet punishment. Simply walk him to the exercise. He’s been quite compliant today.”
Branggin and Slibb exchanged glances again, which Gabe had noticed the two men did quite often where the erratic scientist was concerned, but Slibb tucked the neurocontroller into his belt and moved to unfasten Gabe’s restraints. Branggin retreated a few steps, drew his stunner and took a bead on Gabe. “I will shoot you if you revert to being less than compliant, human. We can do the tests another day.”
“You’ll need to change out of these clothes,” Slibb said. “Too confining for what the Director needs. “
His ankles were now free. Gabe channeled his adrenaline, planning his moves once the pair escorted him toward the spot where the exercise challenge was to take place. No way he was going to be hooked up to the device and made to run naked or whatever else Farahnnim had in mind. He was about to revert to being much ‘less than compliant’, as Branggin had phrased it.
Slibb moved to free first one wrist then the other.
Gabe sat up and slid off the table, making sure to land on the floor close to the lab tech. He put a hand to his head and sagged against the bed he’d been held captive for hours on. “Woozy, room is spinning.”
Slibb reached automatically to help him. Gabe grabbed him by the neck, swung him in front of his own body to block the shot from Blanggin’s stunner, then twisted the tech’s head hard. He heard the sound of the bones breaking, released his grip and allowed the Khagrish to slump to the floor. As soon as he dropped the tech’s body, Gabe was in motion, darting behind the large piece of equipment directly next to the table, which had been used to scan him earlier. He had Slibb’s stunner and the neurocontroller, ripped from the dead man’s belt. Feverishly, he removed the bracelet from his wrist while the security officer took cover behind a bank of monitors, popping out to shoot wildly at Gabe. Timing his shot, he returned fire, winging Branggin, who fell, even though not fully paralyzed.
Apparently unconcerned about the possibility of being shot herself, Farahnnim was throwing every piece of lab glassware within reach at Gabe and shrieking curses in Khagrish. Running out of items to toss, she ran to the closest wall and punched a button, which immediately triggered an ear splitting alarm.
Who does she think is coming? The only other people left in the facility are Ashla and the Daughters. Although Ashla could be a formidable adversary with her fangs and claws. Gabe checked the stunner charge and saw he was running low.
Advancing, he kicked at Branggin’s weapon, which the officer was holding awkwardly with both hands, being partially immobilized. The stunner spun away and Gabe was forced to fire at Farahnnim when she made a dive for the gun. She collapsed in a heap, striking her head on the corner of a stone-topped lab bench on the way down, bleeding heavily from the back of her head.
Blanggin tackled him from behind while he was distracted by the scientist and they grappled, pummeling each other, rolling on the floor, bumping into tables and equipment. The security captain had serious technique, although Gabe’s impression was the Khagrish was out of practice in hand to hand combat. He flung his opponent off and rose to his feet, drawing the homemade knife. Rather than face Gabe, Branggin made a desperate run to retrieve his weapon. Racing after him, Gabe caught up just as the Khagrish was bringing the stunner to bear. Gabe stepped close, slapping aside the gun with one hand and driving the blade deep into Branggin’s heart with the other.
“This is for Keshara and all of her sisters you killed over the years.”
The security officer’s face took on an astonished expression, mouth in an O shape as he wrapped both of his hands around the shiv and collapsed to the floor, convulsing. Gabe scooped up the stunner and shot him again to make sure, then checked for a pulse, finding none. “Not so immortal today, I guess.”
He headed for the door but paused to evaluate Farahnnim, who was clinging to life, although the head wound she’d incurred in her fall appeared to him to be mortal, a sizable part of her skull obviously depressed from the contact with the corner of the stone-topped table. Shaking his head, he emerged into the corridor, heading for the pod room. He wished he had a blaster or a pulse rifle, but Branggin and the late Slibb had only been carrying the nonlethal weapons.
The sound of rushing footsteps alerted him to possible danger, and Gabe took cover in the pod room’s recessed doorway.
Carrying weapons awkwardly, plainly as unused to them as Keshara had been when he gave her a stunner, Raeblin and Palinna ran into the short hallway. Three other Badari women he hadn’t formally met were at their backs, clutching hunting knives in a manner showing they did know what to do with those.
The Badari halted, taking in the chaos inside the private lab, whose door remained open.
“Gabe? We came to help you,” Palinna said, out of breath. “Keshara talked to us last night, via the telepathic link and explained all about the lies we’ve been told. She ordered us to save you today.”
“But it took us too long to find the weapons,” Raeblin said, waving her stunner. “We had to break into the armory and only a few of the guns held a charge.”
He stepped out of the doorway, stunner pointed at the floor. “I appreciate the help, ladies. We need to get in here and rescue Keshara and the others. Is this all of you?”
“All but Ashla.” Raeblin sniffed. “She isn’t one of us.”
“Not after what Keshara told us.” Raeblin added as the others nodded their grim-faced agreement.
“One of you stand guard over there at the junction with the corridor and watch for Ashla. I’m surprised she’s not here already, with the damn alarm blaring. Anyone know how to shut it up?” Not waiting to see if anyone would take care of his request regarding the irritating klaxon, Gabe turned and opened the door to the pod room, stepping inside as fast as
His heart stuttered at the sight of her lying so helpless.
Putting his stunner in his belt to free his hands, he bent to examine the red control. “I can’t read fucking Khagrish,” he said. “Can any of you?”
Shifting his stance to see why there was no answer, he observed the Badari women standing in a frozen tableau by the door, horrified expressions on their faces.
With a sigh, he stood up and walked over to them, resting one hand on Raeblin’s shoulder and the other on Palinna’s. The two women focused on his face as he addressed them all. “We don’t have much time—I think your volcano is about to blow its top.” Another bone jarring series of quakes shook the room, sending the pods and machinery vibrating. “I know this situation, this room, is horrifying for you, but we have to do what we can to save them and get ourselves out of here aboard the flyer. Now can anyone help me open the damn pods or not?”
“I can probably figure it out.” Palinna swallowed hard and went to Keshara’s table. “I’ve had limited training on their machinery, to do basic maintenance.” As she knelt to examine the controls, she asked, “This is where the Khagrish take the extract Keshara told us about?”
“Yeah, hopefully not today. The process was pretty automated. We’d probably have to blast the mechanism with a pulse rifle to make it stop.” He bad a nightmarish flash of the probe going deep into Jezari’s chest and shook it off. Not happening today.
“Are you sure we should open the pods?” Palinna asked. “If a woman had to go through medical procedures to enter the pod, which Keshara seemed to think was going to happen to her, how can we safely remove them from the machine with no care? Shouldn’t we do some research first? See if we can find instructions?”
He tamped down his instinctive jealousy that Palinna had been able to ‘talk’ with his mate when he would have given anything for just a few words to know she was okay. He wasn’t telepathic, end of story. “Farahnnim, Slibb and Branggin are dead so there’s no one left to ask. Even if Ashla was here and she claimed to know the answer, I wouldn’t trust her, would you?” As Palinna shook her head emphatically, he said, “You Badari are tough so we’ll have to pray to the goddess that Keshara and the others can rebound from whatever happened before they were put into the pods. We’re out of choices and time.”
As Palinna murmured agreement and returned to her study of the control box, he paid attention to the others. “I doubt any of these ladies can walk. We’re going to need antigrav litters, four of them if possible.”
A woman standing in back raised her hand. “I’ll go—I know where there are dozens in storage.”
“Hurry,” he said as the floor under them rocked violently.
The volunteer and one other ran out. He rejoined Palinna as the lid of the pod rose with a snap.
Gabe caught a whiff of a terrible smelling chemical as fresh air rushed into the previously enclosed space. Even a short breath of the noxious cloud made him woozy. “Watch out for the fumes,” he said to Palinna as she moved to the next pod. Anxious to get his mate out of the infernal device, he held his breath, bent and scooped Keshara into his arms, holding her close and keeping her nude body wrapped in the sheet. “Wake up, sweetheart.” Her head lolled against his chest, but she was breathing regularly, for which he was glad.
“I brought my medical kit,” Raeblin said, walking over to him. “If you lay her down, I’ll check her vitals. Should I give her a stimulant?”
“I’m no medic,” he said, jaw clenched with worry. “You know more than I do.” He set his mate on the floor as gently as he could, unhappy about the idea, but there was no other surface in the room other than the pods. He wanted to keep her safe in his arms and head off to the flyer landing field now, but there was more to be done to save the others.
“Keshara told us you were mates,” the woman said as she knelt beside Keshara and opened her kit. “She sounded so happy, even in the midst of her worries over being sent here, to the annex. Congratulations! None of us ever expected to find a mate. I envy her, but I’m happy for her.”
“Once we get to the sanctuary valley, you’ll all probably have your pick of dazzled Badari and humans.” Gabe touched Keshara’s cheek with the palm of his hand. “I had to snap her up before she knew there was better than me out there.”
“I don’t believe you,” Raeblin shook her head as she administered an inject and took Keshara’s pulse. “She could talk of little else besides you from the first time you were brought to the Retreat.”
One of the others brought him a stack of the sheets and two folded lab coats. “I found these in a cupboard.”
“Thanks.” He made a pillow for Keshara from one of the sheets and set the others aside.
“You’d better come check Jezari,” Palinna said urgently to Raeblin. “Goddess, but she’s in terrible condition.”
Gabe bent to kiss Keshara’s cheek. “We’re getting out of here today, I promise you.”
He helped the others remove the three original Badari women from their pods, starting with Jezari. She was mere skin and bones and, privately, he feared she stood no chance at all, even with the enhanced Badari physiology. Farahnnim had been stealing her energy for a long time now.
“I wish I had the healing power,” Palinna said fiercely as he laid the third woman next to the other two. “But only Keshara was so gifted by the Great Mother.”
“I don’t even know where to begin treatment,” Raeblin said helplessly. “Nutrients perhaps?”
“In the other lab down the hall,” he said. “Slibb gave me an armful earlier today. But I don’t know that you want to go in there—it’s pretty grim.”
“I think I’d better.” The medic took a deep breath. “Can you come with me?”
“Whatever we’re going to do needs to be fast,” he said. “I hope your friends hurry up with those litters because it’s past time to get out of here.”
The sound of shots came from the hallway, mixed with shrieks of rage and cursing in Badari. Grabbing his stunner from his belt, Gabe sprinted toward the door. “Protect them,” he yelled over his shoulder. When he got to the hall, he found one of his volunteer guards prone and bleeding from huge gouges in her shoulder. The other lay crumpled against the wall, with no sign of her weapon. He was afraid she might be dead from the angle of her neck and head.
“Ashla,” said the bleeding woman, pointing at the lab door.
With the stunner ready, he cautiously worked his way to a position where he could peer past the edge of the door, using the half open panel for cover. Ashla sat on the floor, covered in blood, cradling Farahnnim’s body and weeping in huge gasps that were terrible to hear. Two stunners lay on the floor beside her.
“You killed her,” she screamed as she focused on Gabe. She glanced at the weapons lying by her side but didn’t make a move to retrieve one, instead bending over the scientist again, hugging her.
“I stunned her, and she hit her head when she fell.” He advanced a few feet into the lab. “We’re leaving in a few minutes—this place is going to fall apart or get blasted when the volcano goes. You’re the only one left alive, Ashla, besides the Second Daughters.” Despite his intense dislike of the woman, he schooled his voice to be calm and reasonable. “You can come with us. You’ll have to submit to being restrained and kept under guard. It’d be up to the Alpha what your punishment would be for aiding and abetting the Khagrish, but I won’t leave you here to die.”
“I should have killed you when I first saw you. I should have gutted you right then and there.” Her voice was raw, and she deployed her fangs and her talons. “We should never have considered keeping you alive. She wanted to go steal a few males from one of the lowland labs for breeding purposes, and we should have stuck to that plan.”
“You think you had a problem with me? This group of incompetents couldn’t have handled full grown Generation 8 Badari males.” He tried to imagine the slipshod lab techs keeping Aydarr or Mateer or any of the hardened men he knew imprisoned for very long.
The building shook as another swarm of quakes hit. Gabe grabbed the nearest table to anchor himself as he heard the walls creak and the roof groan.
Raeblin stuck her head through the open door. She sucked in her breath and stiffened as she saw Ashla and the dead scientist but quickly turned her attention to Gabe. “Nutrients? And Naami is back with the antigrav litters.”
He pointed at the cabinet near the examining table he’d been lying on. “Slibb got the one for me out of the drawer there. Be quick and grab what you need. We’ll be heading for the flyer, and you can infuse the nutrients once we’re on board.”
Another quake hit, part of the ceiling fell and a massive crack opened in the wall, showing the outside. Snowing again? He realized he was looking at ash drifting through the sky. Conditions were worse than he’d imagined.
“Running out of time,” he said as Raeblin scooted past him, her arms full of nutrient packs. “I’ll be right there. And we’ll move out.”
He stared at Ashla. “This mountain is going to blow, don’t you understand? You can’t do anything more for the Khagrish so stop and think for a minute. Save your own life and take my offer. Once I’m gone, I’m not coming back—there won’t be a second chance.”
“I’ll take no charity or pity from you or your cursed Alpha.” She held out her hand, unclenching her fist. There was a small black vial lying on her palm, which Ashla raised to her lips, giving him a defiant glare. She drank the contents in one quick swallow before hurling the bottle away to break against the wall. Head bowed for a moment, she sighed. “It’s done, may the goddess forgive me.” She struggled to her feet, carrying the scientist’s body.
Gabe eyed her, puzzled by her actions. “What was in the vial?”
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