Deven cracked open the other door, and they found themselves in a small storefront. Judging by the view out of the huge window, they were across the street from the shuttle port.
The unfortunate humming sound she heard was of five blasters aimed right at them.
32
Three women, one man, and one Welischian, all very calmly held them in their sights. The first woman looked enough like Kaena that Vas wished she’d asked for her mother’s name.
“Drop your weapons, and the box, and lock your fingers behind your head.” It was Kaena’s mom who spoke. The clothing said seamstress, but the tone and the stance spoke police force or military.
Deven responded before Vas did, carefully lowering his blaster on the ground, even going so far as to kick it aside before locking his fingers behind his head.
Vas had survived this long by trusting his instincts, so she shrugged and did the same with her blaster. She put the box down but kept it between her feet. If this item was causing this much trouble she intended to find out what it was.
The Welischian’s eyes lit up at the sight of the carving on the box and Vas thought of Hrrru. Were all Welischians obsessed with puzzles?
“The box if you please.” Kaena’s mother’s voice was clear and slightly accented. Vas couldn’t place it, not yet anyway, but she knew this wasn’t the woman’s home planet.
“Not ready to let that go yet,” Vas said. “I’ve been hired to bring it in, so it will be brought in.”
“How did you get here?” the man asked. He seemed the least confident, and his blaster was shaking a bit. If they had to run, she’d take him out first.
“Kaena sent us.” Deven’s voice projected calm. “She told us her maman saved the good people and we’re good people.”
Kaena’s mom’s eyes narrowed, and she hit a small old-fashioned comm on her wrist. “Kaena? Are you there?”
Vas held her breath, if Kaena didn’t answer right away this could get very messy. Deven trusted these people, and she trusted him. She wasn’t sure about trusting them though.
“Yes, maman. Glithy and I are playing.”
“Did you send some people down the secret way?” Relief mixed with a mother’s annoyance in her voice.
“Yes, maman. The bad men in black were after them. They saved Glithy. Did I do wrong?”
Relief crossed her mother’s face. “No, baby. Just don’t do it again, understand?”
“Yes, maman. Vas is beautiful, isn’t she? She has beautiful hair, too.”
Her mother looked at Vas sharply, then murmured some loving words to Kaena and shut off the comm. She also holstered her blaster and motioned for the others to do the same.
“I’m Therlian, these are Lin, Dhorli, Hallam, and Weli. Any friends of my daughter’s marmat are friends of mine.”
“I’m Vas, as your daughter mentioned. This is Deven. We’re trying to get back to our shuttle but have gained some unwanted attention.” The rest of them had holstered their weapons, so Vas retrieved her blaster and scooped up the box.
Therlian’s smile said it all. “I think there’s a lot more to you, to both of you, than kindly lost wanderers who drew the attention of the black squad. They don’t go after total strangers without cause.”
Deven had holstered his weapon and moved a bit closer to the group. “You’ve seen these people before?” Prior to the attack on planet Giften, or rather the ambush that they’d flown right into, Vas and her people had never even heard of such soldiers, and considering what they did for a living, that said a lot.
One of the other women, Dhorli if they’d been mentioned in order, snorted. “Seen them before? They’ve run control of this place for over a year now. But they started appearing even earlier than that, maybe two years?”
The man nodded. “Aye. The Sanglin province was destroyed by them over eighteen months ago. They tried to say it was a natural disaster.” His grimace said a lot, the massive burn on his torso when he lifted his shirt said more. “I was there. I saw what they did.”
“I thought they were new players,” Vas said under her breath, but Therlian caught it.
“They are elsewhere in the galaxy?” Therlian said, “I was hoping they were our own personal hell. We’ve been getting the people they go after off the planet—when we can. We thought we were sending them to safety.” As she spoke, she motioned for everyone to sit.
Vas needed to get back to the shuttle, get out of here and find out what the hell was in this box. But she had a bad feeling things were about to get a lot uglier.
“Do you know where they came from?” Vas wracked her brain trying to recall what she could of this planet’s government. It was a free state, but aside from that, it had never come up on her agenda before. They’d never had a nice controlled battle that needed mercs.
“No idea,” Therlian said. “Like Hallam said, they first appeared in the smaller provinces, destroyed small villages, stayed on the edges. They’ve been acting as enforcers in all of the major cities for the past year. Anyone taken by them is never seen again. Most people caught by them fight back in the hopes of being killed instead of captured.”
Therlian rocked back in her chair and studied both of them. “Back to you two, though. An esper and a mercenary, if I had my guess. Both trained killers, yet you saved a runaway marmat for a little girl.”
There was no actual question, but the ones that were implied hung there. While they were all sitting down as civilized people, it was still five weapons against two. All five people sitting between them and the only way out wasn’t lost on Vas either.
Vas nodded. “You got us. We’re mercenaries doing a pickup job. Ran into some trouble so had to run.”
“Vas. Vaslisha? As in Captain Vaslisha Tor Dain?” Hallam said then turned to Deven. “And her dead second-in-command, Deven? The Warrior Wench is up there, isn’t it?” He pointed up at the ceiling but beamed like a ten-year-old with a new airbike.
“The rumors of my death were exaggerations, but yes.” Deven nodded to Vas. “We can trust them.”
Therlian dropped her eyes to Deven’s bracelets and scowled. “How did you scan us? Those don’t look fake.”
He held out both hands, then tapped on the esper bands. “They are quite real, I assure you. My captain makes sure of that. I am a quick study in reading people, with or without my telepathic abilities. You are honest people trying to help others survive a bad situation that is about to get a whole lot worse.”
“What do you mean?” Therlian wasn’t having a fan moment like a few of her people.
“It’s a very long story, one we don’t have time for. We need to get out of here and off this planet, unless you want your entire operation blown when they finally do find us,” Vas said.
“Who?” the Welischian asked. It was still staring at the box in Vas’s lap and hadn’t spoken enough for Vas to figure out which gender it was.
“Take your pick. Whoever is behind the black suited strike force or the Empress Wilthuny. I can send you as much details as I can when we get back to our ship, but there’s something under the surface of this planet—something the empress wants.”
“But she has her own world—the powers that be here would never let her take anything.”
“I don’t think she’s going to ask,” Vas said and rose to her feet. “I’m sorry, if you want us to fight our way out, we will, but we have to get out of here. And you need to make plans to leave this planet.”
“The refugee ships,” Hallam said with a smile. Great, he wasn’t a fan because of their fighting, but because of the refugees.
“Yes. I’ve asked my people to send some of the larger ones out this way, just in case. Your daughter has a way to contact my ship when things go bad.”
“If, you mean,” the only woman who hadn’t spoken yet added.
Vas shook her head. “No, when. You’ve got that strike force here for a reason. I have a feeling your real government either sold out or was killed some time ago. Empress Wilthuny i
s here for probably the same reason they are—they just were here longer. It will happen.”
“Can’t you defend us?” Hallam asked.
Vas let out a snort. “Against all of this? No. If you offered me a year’s wages, and a full fighting crew—no. There are too many moving parts to this. Bad moving parts. I’ve learned over the past few months, fighting doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to run so you can fight again.”
Therlian paused for a moment as she weighed the situation. She was a cool strategist, this one. Vas hoped she and her daughter survived whatever was coming.
“Aye, let them pass.” She stepped back a bit as she had placed herself directly in front of the door. “Thank you for helping my daughter’s marmat. Goddess blessings from the field to your heart.” She said the last bit softly and automatically, as one would issue a blessing without thinking when someone sneezed.
But it stopped Vas in her tracks. “What did you say?”
Therlian gave a sideways smile and shook her head. “It was nothing, part of a former life of mine. It means good journey.”
“And from my heart to the grave,” Vas responded.
Therlian rocked back and looked like she was torn between going for her blaster and hugging Vas.
“You are of the sisterhood?” She leaned in close and kept her voice so low that Vas knew no one beyond her and Deven heard her.
“Not anymore, and neither are you,” Vas said with a smile. In all of her travels she’d never found someone of the sisterhood. Few ever left, except in death. Besides, technically, Vas had never been a member. She’d never taken vows, and it seemed like Aithnea had wanted it that way. “I lived with them for a few years. Aithnea was a hard teacher.” Vas didn’t ask but tilted her head in question.
“I was a fifth-year novice when I fell in love. Once I discovered I was pregnant, I broke my ties. Mother Aithnea was a hard teacher about that as well.” She sobered. “My husband died in a mining accident when Kaena was two. We came here for work.”
Vas took Therlian’s arm in the nun’s greeting. It had been a long time, but like the blessing and response it snapped right back into place.
“How are they? Have you seen them?” Therlian’s hopeful look was painful. She loved her daughter, but her longing for her lost life clearly came through.
Vas took a deep breath. “They are gone. They were attacked, and Aithnea performed last rites for all of them.”
Therlian was a powerfully built woman, but she physically buckled at Vas’s words. “How? Who?” If Vas could find the bastards behind this she’d be fighting Therlian to see who destroyed them first. And from the look in the other woman’s eyes, Vas might not win that fight.
“I’m still trying to find out,” Vas said and weighed how much to tell her. “The vid showed those black-suited bastards.”
Therlian backed her way into a chair. The back of her legs hit first, then she folded into it. “I should have stopped them. I could have stopped them.”
Vas looked up at Deven. While she understood the grief and guilt that was flooding the other woman’s system, they needed to get out of here.
“Therlian, look at me,” Vas squatted down to be eye to eye with her. “Wherever you’re going inside there,” she tapped Therlian’s head, “I’ve already been. Aithnea’s live feed showed me the last rites. I bore witness. There was nothing we could have done. Those black suits, and the people behind them, did this. They have destroyed entire planets. They have been working on this for a long time and we don’t even know where they came from.” That was a bit of a lie. Wherever those gray killer ships came from, that distant dimension, that was where the black suits came from, Vas was sure of it.
Therlian looked ready to cry. They were tears of fury, but tears nonetheless. Vas grabbed her arms.
“Novice, is this how you were trained?” Vas held her pitch to match Aithnea’s exactly. “Is this how we act?”
Therlian shook her head and forced a vicious smile. “No, ma’am. We wait, we fight, we die. Free.”
Vas rose to her feet. “I can send you the vid, if you’d like.”
Therlian also rose and held up her hand-held. “I can transfer my data to you.” The screen she held up had every known way to reach Therlian on it. With Vas’s nod, it was transferred via the comms. She also handed Vas a small bag with long handles that would nicely hold the red wood box. “Thank you for bearing witness.”
Vas now found her own throat growing tight. She nodded once to the rest of Therlian’s crew, and left.
“Are you okay?” Deven had stayed a silent presence through the encounter.
“I will be,” Vas said and smiled. “It’s right that one of their former members knows. Aithnea would have loved Kaena.”
Vas paused to verify the crossroads were clear. Therlian’s storefront escape route had put them across the road from the shuttle port, doubtless not by accident. There were no mobs of black-suited marchers, no Asarlaí-tattooed Ellines. No one in fact. Even the shuttle port across the way looked silent. There were only five or six shuttles remaining in the port, the huge ones from Empress Wilthuny having left.
Vas hit her comm, but kept her voice low. Something was making the hairs on her arms stand. “Gosta? Is the empress’s ship still up there?”
“There you are, Captain. I know you said radio silence but I was becoming concerned.”
Vas gave Deven a sharp look—neither of them had ordered radio silence. “We never ordered that, Gosta. Play back the command.”
“It was a text only, came in right after you asked about the refugee ships. It had your code and said you were going quiet and for us to stay in place and keep the comms silent.”
Vas fought the urge to run to her shuttle and get to her ship immediately. No one had been able to break Gosta’s codes—ever. But someone had now. A chill went through her.
The air around them was heavy and silent. Running out in the open might be her last mistake. “Gosta, I never sent that. Scramble all codes, for everything on that damn ship, on the shuttles, on the flits, everything. And move. I don’t care where, but go to red alert and move your asses. Now.”
There was a pause, then a cough. Vas knew the idea of someone breaking his codes was taking a while to filter through. Finally, “Aye, Captain. Gosta out.”
Vas knew even with his shock at what happened, Gosta would have Mac move her ship out of the area in moments. She had no idea what was going on, but if there were fake orders telling them to stay in place, that was the last thing they should do.
“Vas, we need to get off this planet. I can’t pinpoint it, but something is very wrong.” Deven shook his head, and his forehead was crinkled and his eyes squinted in pain.
“Even I can feel that. But I’m not—”
Vas’s words were swallowed by an explosion behind them that knocked both her and Deven to the ground.
Therlian’s storefront burst into a ball of flame.
33
The fireball flared out toward the street, then back into itself as fire suppression programs kicked in. Most of the entire front was gone, the windows on the sides blown out. Burnt and twisted shadows showed against the dying flames. Which were furniture and which were people Vas couldn’t tell.
Worse than the explosion—there were no alarms. No one came running to see what had shaken every building within a few blocks.
Vas scrambled to her feet and ran back into the destroyed building with Deven a step behind her. The stench of burnt flesh hit her immediately. Some of the bodies were torn apart, so there was no way to know how many had been killed. She did know none of them were alive. A pounding and yelling toward the back told her she was wrong.
“Hold on! We’re coming,” Vas yelled and detoured around smoking ruins of desks and chairs. A huge tabletop made of metal had been slammed up against the wall in the explosion and debris was holding it in place.
Deven reached the slab of metal first. He hesitantly touched it with one finger, t
hen looked around for something to grab the hot metal with. He shrugged and took off his jacket, ripped it in two, and wrapped both hands in it.
The person on the other side was still yelling and pounding as Deven pulled off the metal slab. A smoke-covered Therlian and Hallam stumbled forward.
“Goddess,” Therlian said loudly as she quickly took in the destruction and her three dead friends.
“Did you see what it was?” Vas reached out to help her as the woman stumbled a bit. Her right ankle wasn’t supporting her well, but she seemed oblivious to the pain or lack of functionality. Shock was a great pain reliever on the battlefield. It could also end up costing people limbs or their lives as they pushed broken bodies beyond what they could handle.
“What?” Therlian shook her head. “All I hear is buzzing.”
Hallam nodded and added a loud, “Me too.”
Deven took Hallam’s arm and together he and Vas moved them to a less damaged side of the destroyed building. There were still no sirens, no people, nothing. Vas looked out to the shuttle port—no action there either.
“We need to get them out of here,” Vas said to Deven.
Therlian answered first. “We need to get Kaena. Hallam and I had heard something in the tunnel and were going to check on her when the blast happened.” She smiled as Vas raised an eyebrow. “I still can’t hear you well, but I was taught to read lips as a novice.”
Vas smiled at that. Aithnea didn’t want any of her nuns trapped by something as trivial as lack of hearing or sight. They were all trained mercilessly on how to function without them. Vas had sat in on some of those studies and got the lip reading down fairly good. The without sight one was impossible for her though. She was terrified the moment the blindfold came on and would freak out so much Aithnea eventually gave up.
Another rumble shook the ground. An explosion a mile or more away.
Victorious Dead (The Asarlaí Wars Book 2) Page 23
