by Lee Savino
Kadir shakes his head wearily. “Try not to get yourself killed or captured,” he advises. A sly smile tugs his lips. “One more piece of advice. Before you talk to First, do up your pants.”
The six members of the Crimson Force have always had a way of contacting each other. We set it up soon after we were created, as soon as we realized that we were nothing but tools to the High Empire.
I leave a message in a remote corner of the ThoughtVaults. Less than a knur later, First comms me. “Fourth,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “This is a surprise.”
“Is it really?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You went after Second in Consalas, and Third in Nestri. You didn’t even try to recruit me. I’m a little offended.”
“You and Sixth stood by Second’s side in Consalas,” he replies. “It seems apparent that you’ve picked a side.”
“Yet I’m not a part of the Rebellion. I assume you know that. You have spies there, don’t you?”
He tilts his head to one side. “Are you trying to make me believe that you approve of my actions? You’re not that good an actor, Fourth. You’re not Fifth.”
Fifth can make anyone believe anything. It sounds like a great ability to have, but it’s not a gift; it’s a curse. Wars have been started in his name. Cities have been leveled because of a chance remark from his lips. I would not wish his ability on my worst enemy.
I’m walking a very tight line here. “Your actions, no. You tried to kill Second on Consalas. I will never stand by and watch you attack one of our own. I also don’t approve of genocide. However…”
He leans forward. “However?”
Got him. “However, the Empire is stagnating. A thousand years in stasis, and I was prepared for the universe to be unrecognizable. Instead, I find the same old ideas. Same families in power, generation upon generation. Change is unavoidable, but the ruling families have done their best to prevent progress. We need fresh blood, First. We need someone with bold vision to take charge.”
“You?”
“Have I ever displayed the slightest desire to rule?”
“What are you saying, Fourth?”
Almost there. “I’m not convinced the Rebellion is ambitious enough to bring about the change we need. You might be. I’m willing to be persuaded. Meet me in person. Tell me your plans. Convince me that you have the right vision to take charge.”
“You want to meet. Do I look like a fool? You think I’m going to tell you where I am so the five of you can make another attempt to kill me?”
“Oh, for Caeron’s sake.” I roll my eyes. “You’re the one who has initiated the violence. Not us.”
He’s silent for a long time. Finally, he nods. “No weapons. We declare a truce. You give me your word that it’s just you.”
“Done.” It’s worked. “Shall we meet in the Racury Sector in two days? There’s a bar in the Ciras Exchange that makes a great barinth.”
I hold my breath as I wait for him to respond. I didn’t pick the Ciras Exchange by accident. I can make it there in two days, but only just, and only by using unstable wormholes. If First can make it to Racury in time, then it’ll mean he’s nowhere near Avela. And it’ll mean that Diana will be safe.
“No,” he replies, crushing my hope with one simple word. “That’s not going to work.” He gives me a considering look. “Where are you?”
“Come on, First. You don’t think I’m going to answer that, do you? If you don’t like the Ciras Exchange, suggest another location.”
He stares at me. “Avela,” he says. “In the Sarkanon Sector. And not in two days. That might give you time to mount an assault. We meet tomorrow. I had other plans for the day, but this promises to be more interesting.”
Kashrn. He’s on that ship. He’s with Blood Heart.
My heart races in my chest. I pretend to look up Avela on a star map, and then shake my head. “I can’t make it,” I lie. “It’s too far away.”
“I haven’t forgotten your navigational abilities, Fourth. Use them.”
Diana can do her job. The first thing the pirates did in Neiptiun was block the comms. That’s their approach. If they stick to it, then the Blood Heart squadron won’t be able to call First for help.
I just have to keep the homicidal Draekon distracted until she gets in and out.
“See you tomorrow.”
I end the comm and lean back in my chair. In one of our conversations, I’d told Diana I don’t get involved. I don’t care about causes.
I still don’t. But I do care about people.
Diana Behrman is my mate. I’m still in shock. Still processing it. Still trying to decide what it all means, especially right now, when First is determined to bring about chaos to the universe.
One thing, however, is clear. She is mine. She matters to me. And I will die before I let anything happen to her.
16
Diana
I don’t sleep very well. My dreams are filled with Mirak. Mirak leaning forward, his focus entirely upon me, interested and engaged in our conversation. Mirak’s lips tilting up in a smile. Mirak’s eyes, hot with lust. His hands on my body. His mouth on my pussy. All night, the images come in fragmented waves. In the dreamless interludes, I toss and turn, but I can’t get comfortable.
Six hours of sleep would have been barely adequate, and I don’t even get that. Ah well. Coffee is going to have to do the job today.
I gulp down a cup, pour myself another, and head back to the conference room. Ganni, Azeer, Krep, Maz, and Soren file in a few minutes later, Thel and Zabek following them.
Thel’s color is much better this morning; he clearly had no trouble sleeping. But he’s limping badly, and every time he takes a step, his face contorts with pain. Zabek hovers at his side, ready to help him.
I stifle my irritation at Zabek’s presence. I don’t like the Ekton, but whatever his other faults are, Zabek does love his father. When he’s not annoying me, he spends time with Thel. He nags his father into taking his meds, he cajoles him to eat better, he insists that Thel use the healing tank when he’s in pain, instead of trying to power through it. It’s tempting to paint the man as the cartoon-character villain, but he’s not.
Thel looks at my face. “You didn’t get a lot of rest, Diana.”
“Did the coffee give me away?” I smile at my mentor. “I’ll be fine. This should be routine.” As long as First doesn’t show. If he is on the Blood Heart ship, we are toast. Burned-by-dragonfire, charred, toast.
Thel nods, and then turns to Ganni. “What do you have for us?”
Ganni sits straight. “The lab is in the city of Vanait,” she says. “It’s located in an industrial complex.” A map appears on the main screen. “As you can see, the Zorahn scientists chose a corner location. Slider doors. We can pull up a skimmer inside, load it up with Draekons, and nobody on the outside can see what’s going on.”
“We’ll need more than one skimmer for sixty Draekons.”
She nods. “I’ve ordered ten, disguised as delivery vehicles. It’s a busy complex; delivery vehicles are in and out of there all the time. Nobody will take any notice.”
“What’s the security situation on the ground?”
Soren takes over; this is his area of expertise. “I hacked into the feeds. The complex is domed. Only three ways in and out.”
A picture of a circular domed enclosure shows up on the screen, the three exits marked in red. If I drew lines between the exits to connect them, they would be in the shape of an equilateral triangle.
“The challenge is getting through,” Soren continues. “Once we’re in, we’re all set. There is no security inside the complex.”
“None?” I ask, surprised. “No patrols, no drones, nothing?”
“Nothing,” Soren says. “The clients of the complex are less than savory. They don’t want any scrutiny, and they pay handsomely for the privilege. I’ve gone over the feeds thoroughly. The laboratory doesn’t have any guards either.
Nobody except the one scientist, Danax, has been in and out of there in the last month.”
“Just one scientist?”
“There were two others,” he replies. “They left a month ago. Hasn’t been any sign of them since.”
Strange.
“Soren will get us in,” Ganni says. “We have a thirty-minute window, and then the codes change. If we punch in the wrong code on the exit, alarms go off, and the complex sends its private forces in to investigate.”
“Mercenaries.”
“Two dozen of them,” she says. “As the Captain says, the best fight is the one we avoid. We will reach Avela before the Blood Heart ship. I’d like to get in, grab the Draekons, burn the building, and get out before anyone knows we’re there.”
I exchange a glance with Thel. Ganni’s done well. “No skirmish with the complex security, no contact with Blood Heart. I like it. This is a good plan.”
Ganni beams with pride. “Thank you, Chief Officer.”
Thel nods in agreement. “Diana, you’ll lead the strike team?”
Hell, yes. “I will.” I study the plan. “The skimmers are automated?”
“Yes, Chief Officer.”
“Okay, then a team of six should do.” A larger team might make loading the captive Draekons into the skimmers easier, but more people might also draw more attention. “Azeer, Krep, me. Ganni, do you want to run the mission from the ship, or do you want in?”
“In, Chief Officer,” she says promptly, as I expected her to.
“I want in as well,” Maz says grimly.
I eye the man. “There will be Draekons there,” I caution. “They will be badly hurt. Tortured. They might be dead. No matter what you see, you’ll have to hold it together. You cannot harm the scientist.”
“I can do it, Chief Officer.”
Oh, what the hell. Maz might be a shoot-first, think-later kind of guy, but I get why he wants to do this. These are his people. He tested positive for the mutation. Had he not been able to escape, this could have been his fate.
“Fine. Azeer, Krep, Ganni, Maz, and me.” Either Hani’vi or Sina will round us out. Hani’vi is a better fighter in close quarters, but if we get into a gunfight, Sina’s skills are second-to-none.
“I want to come,” Zabek says.
My eyes narrow. Zabek had been happy to let the others do the fighting for him on Besep 3. Parani called him a coward. So far, nothing about his character makes me think that he’s going to volunteer for a mission, no matter how routine. Zabek is the sort who stays behind on the safety of the Mahala. “Why?”
“May I talk to you alone, Diana?”
It’s Chief Officer to you, asshole. I bite back my retort and nod tersely. “Let’s go outside.”
In the corridor, I stare at the Ekton. “Okay, tell me why.”
“I want the scientist.” His ten eyes rest on me. “You’re not blind. You must see it. A year ago, when I left the Mahala, my father could take part in raids. He felt some pain in his ankle, but he thought it was just part of the aging process. Now, a year later, he can barely walk. He spends hours in a healing tank. The slightest weight on his ankles fills him with agony.”
Oh. He’s still an asshole, but he really does care about Thel.
“We went to see a Zorahn scientist once, did he tell you about that? The scientist wouldn’t help us. We weren’t Zorahn. There was no prestige in researching Ekton physiology.”
“He told me.”
“Danax is scum,” Zabek continues. “We both know it. But he can be useful. Prestige or not, he will help my father. Or he will die. Please let me come, Diana.”
His use of my name, and not my title, is a subtle way of undermining me. Zabek is like a tick. An irritant that you don’t notice until you’re bleeding from the wounds it’s inflicted.
He loves Thel.
“Fine,” I snap, regretting the decision the moment the words leave my lips. “You’re in.”
We land in Avela without incident, touching down in a busy spaceport on the outskirts of Vanait. The first time we were on a mission, I’d asked Thel why we didn’t land somewhere more remote, and he’d smiled at my naiveté. “The best way to hide is in a crowd, Diana,” he’d said.
He’s right. Nobody has time to look too closely at us, or to scrutinize the fake identity we use for the Mahala. We’re cleared to land in record time.
Less than an hour later, we pull up at the industrial complex. I hold my breath as Ganni punches in Soren’s code, prepared for all hell to break loose. But the hacker knows what he’s doing. The gates slide open, and we’re through.
“Thirty minutes,” I bark. “Set your timer.”
Ganni studies her screen. “The skimmers are ready and waiting, Chief Officer.”
“Good job. Okay, let’s do this.”
Our skimmer pulls up outside the laboratory. Azeer holds up a codebreaker to the lock. A minute later, the mechanism disengages. Success. The door slides open, and we enter.
Twenty-eight minutes on the timer.
I told Maz to prepare for scenes of torture. But I should have given myself the same advice.
Lisa and I didn’t spend very long in the Zorahn scientists’ clutches. A week, maybe ten days? I thought I’d escaped without damage. But the second I breathe in that chemical-tinged air, it all comes back to me, and I halt dead in my tracks. My knees turn to water, and my feet refuse to move forward.
“Chief Officer?” Azeer is right next to me. He locks his hand on my elbow, propping me up. “It’s okay. We have time.”
I look around, and bile fills my mouth. The intel was right; there are sixty Draekons here. They’re held in cages, one stacked on top of the other. The stink of pee and shit and fear fill the air. Several of them have open, festering wounds. Most of them are unconscious. A couple of them stare at us with blank eyes.
Oh God. I knew it would be bad. I wasn’t prepared for this.
“Chief Officer,” Azeer repeats. This time, his voice cracks like a whip. “You are the Second-in-Command of the Mahala, the most glorious pirate ship in Ekton history. Pull yourself together.”
His words penetrate my fog of horror. I take a deep breath and regret it almost immediately as the scents of the lab mount a fresh assault on my senses. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” He doesn’t smile, but his gaze softens somewhat. “Krep, Ganni, Maz. You have sedatives, yes? Use them. Come on, let’s go. Get them loaded.”
Zabek isn’t anywhere to be seen. Before I can call for him, he emerges from a back room, dragging a man with him. “The scientist,” he snaps. “If you can call him that.”
Danax reeks of booze and apathy. “Who are you?” he asks blearily. “What do you want? Did the Council send you?”
Zabek growls in frustration and backhands him, and the scientist goes flying to the floor.
I get the frustration; I’m feeling it too. The laboratory is in shambles. The Draekons aren’t being tended to. Danax looks half-drunk. We came looking for a competent scientist who would be able to cure Thel, and we’ve gotten this guy instead.
But we’re on a mission, and the timeline is tight, and Zabek is useless to us if he can’t keep a handle on his emotions. “Enough,” I say sharply. “Help the others load.”
He looks like he’s going to protest. I fix him with a glare, and he walks away. I hoist the scientist to his feet. “Who are you?” he repeats. “What do you want?”
“Right now, I’m fighting the urge to punch you.” I pull the man’s arms behind his back and cuff them together. “Look at these people. Look what you did.”
He blinks in confusion. “They’re Draekons. Animals.”
“They’re sentient beings.” Why am I arguing ethics with this drunken scientist? Generation upon generation of the Zorahn have been brainwashed into thinking of Draekons as beasts, wild and out of control, waiting to wreak havoc on their precious Homeworld. I’m willing to wager that as soon as they tested positive, these men were shunned by their families a
nd friends. I don’t know how long they’ve been in this lab, broken and in pain, resigned to dying, secure in the knowledge that there is no one in the universe who will care enough to help them.
Hate is corrosive. The instant these men tested positive, people stopped seeing them for who they were. All they could see was the labels the High Empire pinned on them. Draekons. Beasts. Violent.
My dad was a child when the Nazis came for his parents. It broke him. He never recovered from it.
Fourteen minutes on the timer. The team is loading the last of the skimmers. The sedative that Odrien, the Mahala’s resident healer, had given us seems to be doing its job, thank heavens. For the moment, it’s giving the Draekons a much-needed respite from ever-present pain.
“Done,” Ganni says, a subdued expression on her face. It’s not just me. Every one of the team is reeling from the horrors of this lab. “The last skimmer is out. We’re good to go, Chief Officer.”
Good. The sooner we blow this place to smithereens, the better.
“Chief Officer,” Soren’s voice sounds in my ear. “We have a problem. The Blood Heart ship appears to have landed ahead of schedule. Four soldiers on their way to your location. They’ll be there in two minutes.”
There’s always something. I stick a sedative-laden needle into Danax’s neck. Time to go sleep-sleep. It works instantly. He crumples to the floor. I signal to Maz, Krep, and Azeer. The three of them melt away into the shadows.
“No unnecessary fire,” I tell the remaining two. “There are only four of them. We take prisoners, question them, mind-wipe the encounter, and ransom them back to their families. Got it?”
The doors to the lab explode.
The Blood Heart soldiers rush in, expecting no resistance. I lift my gun. The Leddad 87 has a fearsome reputation around the galaxy. Banned in every planet in the High Empire, its laser beam can penetrate most commercial armor. There’s no better weapon for a gunfight.
“Drop your weapons,” I say to the Blood Heart soldiers, just as Maz, Krep, and Azeer come up behind them. “You’re surrounded.”
