Not Fade Away: Interstellar Rescue Series Book 4

by Donna S. Frelick

  Rafe joined him. “Nice trick,” he said, nodding at the first two guards.

  “Yeah, well, I’m a little rusty.” Gabriel looked closely at the bodies. “Might’ve killed them.”

  “Oh? Too bad.” Rafe led the way up the porch, his own stun gun in his hand, but Gabriel yanked him to the side as the door banged open. Laze fire from the ridge sizzled past his ear and punched into the man in the doorway. The guard slid to the floor, blocking the way for the man behind him. Rafe got his weapon up and fired just as another burst came from behind him. Double-tapped, the man flew backwards, clearing the way.

  Gabriel propelled him inside, and a voice in his head said, Close your eyes. He did what the voice said without question, and a nanosecond later the inside of his eyelids lit up with bright red. He heard men screaming; he heard heavy thuds as they dropped to the floor; he heard moans and calls for help.

  Then he heard Gabriel’s voice—a normal voice, in his ears. “Okay, you can open your eyes now. Let’s go.”

  Rafe looked, and all around him bodies lay writhing on the floor. “What the hell did you do?”

  “Energy flash. They’ll be all right in a few hours,” Gabriel said. “I had to clear the room.”

  Rafe did a quick count. “Milsap’s not here. And I don’t see anyone matching Doc Rainey’s description either.”

  Gabriel touched his earpiece. “Ray, do you have a location on the remaining EM sigs?” He listened, then nodded at Rafe. “Basement. Stairs on the left.”

  They went past what looked like a kitchen and found the door to the basement. “How do you want to do this?” he said to Gabriel.

  “We need silence, for one thing,” Gabriel answered, his voice low. “And we need to split up.” Do you mind?

  “Yes, I mind!” he hissed. He wouldn’t have that mindsucker crawling around inside his skull. “Use the fucking comm if you want to talk to me.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Stay here. I’ll take the outside door.”

  Rafe waited, his ear pressed to the basement door, as Gabriel circled around outside. There was no sound from below, but Rayna’s intel was solid; he caught a glimpse of one of her insect-like nanobots slipping out from under the basement door.

  His earpiece crackled to life. “Outer guard down. Still one on the inside of this door, plus the one you’re facing on your door. Ready to go when you are.”

  Rafe sent up a brief prayer of thanks. If the men were on the doors, their hostages were unguarded, and less likely to be killed when they went in. This was going to be easier than he’d thought! Then he realized his verbal countdown with Gabriel would be heard. Shalssit!

  He whispered his assent. “Okay, just this once, read my mind, Mr. Mindwipe.” He heard Gabriel’s acknowledgment in his head. Then he gripped his weapon and counted: On one. Three, two, ONE!

  He put a boot up and kicked in the door. Wood splintered, and the man that had been stationed behind the door tumbled heavily down the stairs. Rafe took the first three stairs in a single jump to follow the man down. It was Sonny, lying in a groaning heap at the bottom.

  Sonny looked like he was finished; he should have been finished after that roll down the stairs. But as Rafe came at him, he curled in on himself like a half-stomped slime devil and came up pointing a handgun at Rafe’s gut. Rafe had too much momentum to stop and no time to raise his own weapon. He just kept on pounding down the stairs straight at the fallen man, aiming a kick at Sonny’s grimacing face. He made contact just as something—a shoe?—came flying at Sonny’s hand and a loud boom! split his eardrums. Sonny sagged against the basement wall, unconscious or dead, Rafe didn’t care.

  Rafe staggered over the body into the dim underground space, ready to help Gabriel dispatch his man, but Gabriel was ahead of him. In fact, from what Rafe could see, Doc Rainey had put up no resistance at all. He was standing with his hands up and a look of aggrieved innocence on his face.

  “I swear this wasn’t my idea at all,” Doc was saying. “That fucking Milsap brought Louise here without my permission. Then the sheriff showed up with Charlie. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Shut up,” Gabriel told him. The man’s mouth snapped shut, and he offered no resistance as the Thrane put a pair of sensor cuffs on him. “Try to get out of those and they’ll only get tighter.”

  Rafe turned back to do the same for Sonny, who, it seemed, was only unconscious. But when he took the gun out of the man’s slack hand, the weapon was warm. It had been fired. He’d been right on top of him . . .

  Rafe’s heart was still racing, the effect of adrenalin in the heat of battle. Maybe he was a little dizzy?

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Rafe, are you okay?”

  Then Charlie was there in his arms and nothing else mattered. “I should be asking you that question,” he said, holding her tight. “Did they hurt you?”

  She looked up at him, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “No. They left us alone.” She managed a smile. “I knew you would come.”

  The blood roared in his ears. The woman had such an effect on him.

  As if she was speaking from another planet, he heard Louise say, “Thank you, sweetheart. But I think you better help your friend. He’s leaking.”

  What the hell is she talking about? He stood away from Charlie and looked down. He seemed undamaged. But there was a tiny pool of—was that blood?—under his feet. He turned in a circle, confused.

  Charlie reached for him. “Rafe!” She caught him under the arm, but still he wobbled.

  Gabriel was suddenly there, holding him up. “You’re hurt, amigo. Lie down.”

  “What? No! I’m fine.” He couldn’t feel anything. But he was so tired suddenly. Maybe he should lie down. Just for a minute.

  The second his mind agreed, his body collapsed, forcing Gabriel to ease him to the concrete. At least, he thought that’s what happened since he hadn’t cracked his skull on the hard basement floor. But . . . what am I doing down here again?

  Gabriel rolled him to his side. “You have a bullet in the back of your thigh. We have to get you to the ship.”

  “What?” Now he was really confused. Weren’t they on Earth? “What ship?” He thought he heard an echo—two echoes—in feminine voices.

  “Sam is in close orbit with the Shadowhawk, or he was. For this op.”

  “What’s a Shadowhawk?” Louise asked.

  Doc Rainey chimed in. “And did you say orbit?”

  Oh, shit, now the crap had hit the thrusters! Civilians! Looks like old Gabe will have to have a mindwipe party!

  Rafe heard them asking questions, demanding . . . something. But they were drifting in and out. Or he was. Shock, he thought. Shouldn’t I put my feet up? He tried to move—and failed.

  Gabriel lifted his leg while Charlie tied a strip of cloth around the hole in the back of his thigh. That hurt. He tried to glare at the Thrane, but he couldn’t focus. Gabriel had three faces that kept circling each other.

  “Sonofabitch shot me,” he said, understanding dawning at last. The little ptark.

  Gabriel—all three of him—grinned. “So it would seem. While you were kicking him in the teeth.”

  He remembered why he was fighting with Sonny in the first place. “Charlie?”

  “I’m here, Rafe.” He realized she was holding his hand when he felt her squeeze. “Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”

  “Do I remember a shoe?”

  “Um, well, that was my attempt to help you. Not sure it did any good.” She smiled at him; he didn’t mind seeing more than one of her. “Now, hush. Gabriel is going to make sure you get the treatment you need. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  No. Come with me. He wanted to say it out loud, but he really was so tired. He couldn’t seem to find the breath for it.

  Gabriel’s face swam into view. “Okay, Sickbay is standing by on the ’hawk. Ray will take the women back to your house while I finish up here. Milsap and Rainey will have to be wiped and relocated before we can move on to our o
riginal business.”

  Original business. He couldn’t think what that was right now.

  Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We won’t make any decisions without you. You can trust me.”

  Rafe felt a warmth seep into his body from where the Thrane’s hand rested on his shoulder. The man had had his back today. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy. He’d have to think about that later.

  Right now, all he wanted to do was sleep. So, he held onto that warmth and let go of everything else, sinking into a dark, welcoming oblivion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Rayna waded through the carnage in the farmhouse to find what was left of the door to the basement and slipped down the stairs, moving with caution until she confirmed the man at the bottom had been trussed up with sensor cuffs.

  “Gabriel?” She stopped and searched the gloom. “Oh, there you are.” She lifted her feet over the body sprawled in front of her and joined the Thrane where he stood with a man of about 65, also in cuffs, and an older woman.

  Gabriel nodded at her. “Chief,” he said. “Join the party.”

  “Must have been one helluva bash. Everybody else is passed out.”

  “We do know how to have a good time.” He indicated the woman at his side. “This is Louise Shelton, Charlie’s friend. Louise, meet Rayna Murphy, our . . . uh, the leader of our group.”

  Louise held out a hand for a shake. “I take it you’re the brains of this outfit.” She looked up at Gabriel. “Not that I mind the brawn, you understand.”

  “Let’s just say this was a team effort,” Rayna said, grinning at Louise’s firm handshake. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Those two are about as threatening as a pair of gophers.”

  “Gophers, huh?” The cuffed man spat. “I ever see you again, I’ll show you gophers, you old hag.”

  Rayna ignored the outburst and joined Charlie kneeling by Rafe’s side. She started to reach out to her, but thought better of it.

  Instead, she focused on Rafe. “How’s he doing?”

  Charlie allowed her a brief glance. “He’s still bleeding. We need to get him out of here.”

  “Don’t worry, Charlie. We’ll take good care of him.”

  The woman did look at her then, a good hard stare that demanded truth. “On your ship? How about I go with him and see for myself? I think I may have earned a few answers, don’t you?”

  Rayna shot a glare at Gabriel, who must have blabbed openly about a lot of shit earlier. “That’s not possible, and I suspect you know it,” she said. “But you’re right. We owe you a look at the big picture. Once you get home—I promise.”

  Charlie lifted her chin, still defiant, and Rayna resigned herself to the inevitable. The woman may have looked as delicate as a solar sail, but she was tougher than durasteel. There was no way Rayna could continue to fight both Rafe and Charlie together.

  And she needed to speed this along. “You have my word.”

  Charlie nodded at last. “Okay.” She rose to her feet. “Do whatever you need to do for Rafe. But hurry.”

  Rayna turned to Gabriel. “I’ll walk these ladies to the car. Take care of Rafe and meet us there in five.”

  “Acknowledged.” Gabriel switched to subvocal communication for the rest of it. I assume you wish to have Louise forget all about her kidnapping?

  --No need for her to be asking awkward questions down the road. It’s bad enough that I have to bring Charlie in on all this.

  --Agreed.

  -- Standard procedure for those two. She glanced at the two cuffed men.

  --Understood. Mindwipe them and relocate them to another part of the country. Sam and I will take care of it after Rafe is safely in Sickbay. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.

  --Good. “All right, Charlie, Louise, you’re with me.”

  “So, isn’t anybody gonna tell me what all this is about?” Louise said, looking from face to face. “I get snatched up in the middle of the night, then rescued out of the blue, and now I’m just supposed to go home?”

  Rayna swallowed. “Um—”

  Louise headed for the stairs. “Never mind. You can explain everything on the way home. I got dogs waiting for me.”

  Charlie gave Rayna a pointed glance. “See? Kinda hard to keep a secret around here.”

  Rayna followed the two women up the stairs, ignoring protests from the man at Gabriel’s side. “Hey, wait a minute! What about me? What’s he gonna do with us? You can’t just leave us here—” The man’s voice cut off in mid-sentence.

  Gabriel’s at work already, Rayna thought.

  Louise glanced back at Rayna once she reached the top of the stairs. “What do y’all plan to do with those two?” She took another couple of steps to let Charlie and Rayna join her at the top. “I suppose you could call in the Feds, but you’ll get nowhere with local law enforcement.”

  “I think we’re clear on that,” Charlie muttered.

  “We have our own ways of reforming criminals,” Rayna said, trying not to give away too much. “Give Gabriel a few minutes alone with them and they’ll forget all about their lives of crime.”

  Louise squinted at her. “Don’t rightly know how you could do that. And there’s plenty around here to remind them even if you could.”

  The woman might have lost sleep overnight, Rayna thought, but she hadn’t lost any brain cells. “Good point. We thought we might give them a free trip out of town.”

  Charlie frowned at her, but Louise nodded. “If that means you take ’em and drop ’em in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere, I’m all for it.”

  Rayna stepped out in front and led the way down the hall toward the front door. But she had to pull up again when Louise stopped and gaped at the men sprawled in the living room.

  “What the living hell has happened to them?” she said.

  “Taser,” Rayna said, and kept walking, ushering her charges out the door.

  Where the scene was even worse. They crossed the yard, littered with unconscious men, to the rental vehicle. Charlie seemed calm enough, but Louise’s head swiveled from side to side as she leaned on her friend’s arm, momentarily speechless. Once she’d climbed into the front seat of the vehicle, she caught Rayna in an eagle’s stare.

  “What the hell went on here?” she demanded. “Tasers don’t do that. Those men aren’t dead, are they?”

  Rayna glanced in the rearview mirror; Charlie was too quiet. “No. They’ll wake up eventually. That’s why we have to get the hell out of here.” She started the engine.

  Louise crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, I’m grateful for the rescue and all, but how did Rafe and Gabriel knock out eight men, just the two of them? And what is Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome really doing to Doc and Sonny back there?”

  Rayna wouldn’t meet her eyes, just made an elaborate show of turning the vehicle in the snow-splotched yard. “Like I said. Tasers. Okay, we’ve got special ones adapted for broad- target application. And Gabriel has certain . . . skills. But he won’t hurt Sonny and Doc. He’ll just interrogate them and escort them out of town.”

  Louise considered for a long moment. “Right. You know what? I wasn’t born yesterday, honey. Rescue or not, you’re gonna tell me who you people are, and what you have to do with Del and Rafe. Poor little Charlie doesn’t know what she’s got herself into. But we are gonna find out. You can put that in the bank.”

  “Louise, I’m right here, you know,” Charlie said from the back. “And I can take care of myself.”

  Rayna stifled an inappropriate urge to laugh. Louise’s jaw was set, and there were two deep furrows between her brows. It was a shame they wouldn’t have her on their side, really.

  “Look, here comes Gabriel now,” she said. “Why don’t you ask him what he did with Doc and Sonny?”

  But Louise had no sooner turned toward the open window than Gabriel had his hand on her arm and she slumped in her seat.

  “Louise!” Charlie leaned forward between the front seats and
glared at Gabriel. “What did you do to her?”

  “She’ll sleep now,” Gabriel said, his face like stone. “And when she wakes in her own bed at home, she’ll remember nothing of what happened last night.”

  Horror and confusion warred in Charlie’s expression. “What? You invaded her mind?”

  “I touched her mind very lightly to take only the memory of her kidnapping,” Gabriel countered. “I disturbed nothing else.”

  “As if that matters.” Charlie sat back. “No wonder Rafe wants nothing to do with you.”

  Rayna knew Gabriel understood better than anyone the necessity of what he did for Rescue. But his work sometimes skirted the boundaries of his own ethics. He was often torn, and it showed in his eyes, even as he tried to hide it. Gabriel might have been half Thrane, but his human half frequently filled him with guilt.

  Rayna nodded to let Gabriel go, and turned back to Charlie. “You have no context in which to put this right now, Charlie. But trust me, things will make a lot more sense when you know what we’re doing here.”

  Charlie met her gaze with one of lethal focus. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “How is he?” Rafe could’ve sworn the voice in the air above him belonged to Sam Murphy. But what the captain of the Shadowhawk was doing here was beyond his ken.

  “Lucky, that’s how he is.” A woman’s voice, one he didn’t recognize. He tried to open his eyes and failed. His head felt like it was floating somewhere over his body, a body that weighed as much as a stasis container right about now. “A centimeter to the right and that whatchacallit—bullet?—would’ve severed the femoral artery. All the mind games in the world wouldn’t have kept the blood in his body then.”

  “Are you criticizing my technique, Doctor?” That was the Thrane. At least that made sense. Gabriel had been in the basement with him when . . . when . . . what happened again?

  “Not at all, hon. You got him here in plenty of time.”

  “So, what’s the prognosis?” Sam again. “Will he need the regen tank?”

  What? Oh, hell, no! Rafe forced his eyes open.