“The scientists at East Kasana didn’t have a Badari prisoner there though, did they?” The security officer was obviously grasping for any comforting idea he could latch onto into the dire situation.
“Doesn’t matter. Orders from the Home Planet are to wipe this out wherever it occurs.” She laughed. “Of course someone obviously infected me at the conference, so make of the edict’s effectiveness what you will. Maybe the incubation period varies widely with Strain B.” She rubbed her chest and swallowed hard as if she had a sore throat or an obstruction in her passageway. “There may be more than one lab destroyed this week if my other colleagues took the bug home with them but I’m determined it won’t be ours. Now get out of my way and let me work—my immune system is losing this battle.”
The two techs rushed from the other side of the room and Enishiggama rose to her feet, although not without leaning heavily on the desk.
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry for interfering with your ongoing process. Anything you need, let me know.” The captain backed away as if he couldn’t leave fast enough.
With his lips curled and fangs extended, Reede watched him go. How long would it be before he went ahead and called for help whether Enishiggama gave permission or not? Probably as soon as he starts coughing. Reede had no problem believing what the scientist said about the threat of total destruction. The Khagrish were a ruthless people. The security officer probably assumed he had friends who could or would help. Yeah, good luck with that.
“Now, where were we?” Enishiggama said.
“Obtaining a bone marrow core for you.” Maddumma strolled to the table and rested one hand on the instrument, while giving Reede an ominous smile. “Shall I proceed?”
CHAPTER SIX
Once the decision to rescue Reede had been made, the Badari were as efficient a group of soldiers as Fallyn had ever seen. One man stayed behind to cache the majority of the gear while the others moved south through the forest rapidly, keeping her in the middle of the formation, with MARL20 by her side. She admitted to herself they could proceed much faster if she wasn’t with them but she was determined to be a part of this rescue operation.
“We’re planning to march all night,” Darik warned her, falling back from the point position briefly to talk. “We’ve done it before and we have the stamina to bring the fight to the enemy when we get there. One of us can carry you later, if you’ll give us permission. You might be able to grab a few winks.”
Forcing herself to keep moving, calling on every ounce of training and innate stubbornness, she eyed him. “How do I know you won’t decide to evac instead, once I’ve drifted off?”
Eyes glowing, he was as intense as she’d been. “Lieutenant, I’m going to ignore that insult and chalk it up to your worry for Reede. We’re all in on this. I’ve called for pickup one hour after dawn and I plan to change the location to the lab at the last possible moment, which will royally piss off both our pilot and the Alpha. We’ll have one chance at getting Reede out of there, hitting the place at their normal shift change. And then our evac arrives and we go. No ifs ands or buts, got it?”
She shook her head. “Not without Reede.”
“Oh we’ll have him, I guarantee it. They won’t see us coming, thanks to MARL20 but we’ll have to move fast—”
Pain shot through her thigh as if she’d been shot point blank by a blaster and Fallyn fell to the ground screaming. She dropped her weapon and clutched at her leg, biting her lip until it bled not to cry out again. The agony was centered in her upper thigh knifing all the way to the bone, radiating through her body in sheets of sharp pain.
“What in the seven hells?” Darik fell to his knees beside her and Timtur came racing up.
Fallyn was barely conscious of the healer and the squad leader conferring.
“I don’t know what happened—she screamed and grabbed at her leg as if she’d been bitten by a gliddern. I didn’t see a damn thing,” Darik said. He bent over her. “We gotta get your pants off to let the medic see what’s going on.”
She nodded, lying on the soft soil, savoring the cold against her back. Modesty was the least of her concerns at the moment, although fortunately she had the utilitarian prison underwear on. “Whatever it takes.”
Timtur passed his hands over her body first, green light flowing from his hands. There was noticeable lessening of the pain in her leg but not enough to bring significant relief. Darik gave her an inject he dug from the medic’s backpack and even the shot meant for humans didn’t dent the pain by more than a little. The two men removed her utilities as carefully as they could and a third Badari stepped in to lay a blanket across her body as the pants slid down, to provide as much coverage as possible.
“Nothing, there’s nothing, no mark, no bite, no broken bone.” Timtur’s voice was tense.
The tingling coolness of his healing energy was a soothing balm to her skin and only Darik’s implacable grip on her shoulders kept her from curling into a tight ball to try to stem the pain. “Hurts like hell,” she said with gritted teeth. “I’m not faking this.”
“No, we believe you,” Timtur’s tone was reassuring.
There was another wave of agony in her thigh and Fallyn went rigid, head thrown back against the pack one of the Badari had placed under her. She couldn’t see because her vision blanked out. When she regained her senses, the pain was gone, her pants were pulled up again and she was braced against someone’s strong arm, with tea being forced past her lips. Fallyn swallowed the warm liquid greedily and then pushed the mug away, fighting to sit up.
“I saw Reede,” she said. “Don’t ask me how or why but I know what’s going on with him right now. He’s in a medlab, tied down and they’re torturing him.” Fallyn rubbed her thigh, experiencing only a mild discomfort, similar to the sensation after a bad charley horse. “I think I felt his pain.” She expected the Badari to be skeptical or laugh at her but they both wore serious expressions and expressed no doubt of her statement.
“Mates,” Timtur said. “You’re linked. But I thought you two hadn’t claimed each other?”
“I—I don’t know what the term means. He said we could be mates but not much beyond that. Not-not details.” She blushed, remembering the context of the conversation in the faux cave. “We stopped discussing it.”
“Can you stand?” Darik asked. “We need to be on the move again.”
“No problem.” She took the hand he offered.
“Reede is an enforcer,” Timtur said to Darik. “Powerful but not at Alpha level. He shouldn’t be able to link to a woman he’s not actually mated to.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to allow her to sense his pain.” Darik glanced at Fallyn and she had the feeling the conversation continued but along their telepathic link where she couldn’t hear any more.
“Was I out for long?” She checked the sky and estimated it wasn’t much later in the day.
“No, we’re fine. We all needed a break,” Darik said calmly. “Only a few minutes lost.”
The squad hiked all night as promised, with a few brief breaks. They ate on the move and when she reached the state where she was basically stumbling along, half asleep, Darik picked her up and carried her. Fallyn managed to drowse for an hour or so, enough to take the edge off her fatigue and then insisted on proceeding the rest of the way on her own two feet. She was driven by a sense they didn’t have much time to accomplish the rescue and grateful the agonizing pain in her thigh didn’t reoccur. She hoped the relief meant Reede wasn’t being tortured.
The team arrived at the force fence in the predawn and MARL20 did his wizardry of creating a hole in the barrier. The AI stuck close to the soldiers as they moved in a tight group toward the lab.
“He’s rendering us invisible to their vids and scans,” Darik said when she protested making themselves such an easily destroyed target.
Finally they reached the ridge overlooking the lab, sneaking along the terrain until they had a view of the front entrance and the fli
er landing field off to the side. Fallyn wished she had a pair of distance viewers and envied the Badari their extraordinary eyesight.
“Something’s not right,” Darik said after he and the others studied the complex.
“There’s a dead or dying man beside the first flyer,” Timtur pointed and Fallyn could make out the fallen Khagrish.
“Has the lab been under attack already?” she asked, dread in her gut like a stone.
“Not by us, if that’s what you mean.” Darik shook his head. “They have no other enemies on the planet.”
“I’m not picking up much activity inside,” MARL20 said in his birdlike voice. Dark gray and navy bands of color raced across his surface in a jagged pattern making Fallyn dizzy. “Internal coms quiet, no one walking the halls, no external links active. I do detect a large number of life forms, including Reede and the human prisoners.”
“Show us.” Darik’s command was crisp.
The AI projected a holo of the building, a green outline of the layout, with dots for the sentients. Fallyn had no trouble identifying the cell block, with a large cluster of dots. She thought she knew which one was Reede, isolated in another wing of the building, and there were dots at random throughout the building, which must be the Khagrish. Three of those black dots were in the room with Reede and she suppressed a shudder.
“Door’s opening.” The soldier’s warning was quiet.
The entire squad, including Fallyn, trained their pulse rifles on the entrance to the lab.
A lab tech staggered out, made it four or five steps and went to her knees before collapsing completely.
“I’ve seen this before,” Darik said, rising to his feet. “At the lab where Nicolle and I were held prisoner. These people are all dead or dying. The virus kills quite efficiently. Stay frosty but let’s get this done.”
They moved rapidly down the hillside and approached the open portal with caution. Fallyn approved, since there could be Khagrish inside who were in a less advanced state of the disease and able to shoot. She glanced at the lab tech as she passed. No one she recognized. The woman’s glassy stare and barely moving chest indicated all too clearly how close she was to death.
“Nothing we can do,” Timtur said, giving Fallyn a gentle push. “They unleashed this virus on themselves. Let’s find Reede and clear this place.”
“I’ve called in additional support,” Darik said over his shoulder. “We can’t leave the human prisoners here to starve to death. Aydarr is not happy with us right now.” As the squad kept moving, checking the doorways and corners, he grinned over his shoulder at Fallyn. “Lucky for us we’re bringing you to sanctuary valley so he won’t be able to stay mad.”
“Coming up on the lab where Reede is being held.” MARL20 was red with purple slashes as he gave the warning. “Three Khagrish inside.”
Darik burst through the doorway into the lab, Fallyn right behind and the other Badari on her heels. Two women were bending over the table where Reede was restrained and a pair of well-placed shots took them out.
“Watch out for Enishiggama,” Reede yelled, fighting against the metal cuffs holding him helpless.
The scientist hadn’t been in sight when they breached the door. With a scream, the scientist rushed them. The range was too close for the pulse rifles and she launched herself at Fallyn. Moving without hesitation, Fallyn wrestled her to the floor. Wrapping her hands around the Khagrishi’s throat she did her best to strangle the enemy.
Darik and Camron pulled the scientist away from Fallyn, and Timtur helped her rise. They left Enishiggama huddled against the wall.
“Watch her,” Darik ordered one of his solders.
Breathing hard, Fallyn rushed to the table, assessing the situation as a Badari soldier released the cuffs holding Reede. As soon as the restraints retracted into the table, he sat up and with a loud curse, pulled the probe from his thigh, throwing it across the room before grabbing his leg and curling over from pain for a moment.
“Nasty wound – can you walk?” Fallyn asked, working hard to keep her composure in the face of his suffering.
“I’ll crawl to get out of here.” He yanked the second, smaller portal and associated tubing from his arm, blood spewing on the table and the floor as he did so and kicked the machine away from him with so much force it hit the wall like a missile, shattering the receptacle full of his blood. Red splattered everywhere.
“You need a tourniquet,” Fallyn said, trying to get him to focus on her because his eyes were pools of red gold flame and he seemed scarily out of control.
He yanked his arm away from her but did focus on her face. “I heal. It’ll stop on its own.”
Already the spray of red from his arm was diminishing and Fallyn watched in astonishment as his skin sealed the raw edges where he’d torn the port out. There was a spectacular black-and-purple bruise on his thigh where the other instrument had been seated, and minor bleeding there.
“Fucking hell, what did she do to me?” He leaned on the table and took a deep breath. “Leg hurts like they were trying to saw it off.”
Fallyn glanced at the body of the senior lab tech and shivered. “She hated you so much.”
“She told me when she was activating the bone drill that she was taking revenge on behalf of her brother.” Reede shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. He was a security guard, she said, and I certainly killed a few of those whenever I had the chance. She said she’d researched my records.” He rubbed his thigh and cursed.
“If you’d step aside, please, lieutenant.” Timtur was waiting. The green light already sparkling from his fingertips. “I can help Reede more than you can right now, no offense.”
“You aren’t supposed to be here at all,” Reede said to her with a frown. “What the hell were all of you thinking, coming after me? She’s the important one.” He yanked free of the healer’s hold and snatched a pile of clothing Darik retrieved from the pack he’d carried. Hastily he yanked on the pants and pulled the tee shirt over his head before slamming his feet into a pair of boots. He grabbed the pulse rifle one of the Badari offered him. “We need to move now.”
An alarm sounded and lights strobed in the lab and the corridor outside.
“Who set off the alarm?” Fallyn said as Reede cursed.
“I did.”
Wheeling in disbelief, Fallyn found Enishiggama had managed to reach the desk and trigger the alert. How is she even still alive? The scientist looked like she was on her deathbed, eyes sunken, blood dripping from her ears and nose.
“I thought she was dead,” said the man who’d been assigned to guard her.
“Never trust a Khagrish. I’ll deal with your lapse in judgment later,” Reede said.
“You’re not escaping me, 803,” the scientist said in a barely audible voice. “I need your blood—I told you how critical your samples are.”
Reede stood over Enishiggama, his face in hard lines. “Tell me a hundred times and it won’t matter. You’ll be dead by sunset and not by my hand. Word is you people created this virus yourself so I find it richly ironic it’s now killing you.” He picked her up despite her feeble attempts to fight him and headed for the lab’s door. “Stay behind me, watch my back,” he said to the others. “I’m going to use her as a hostage until we get clear.”
“Good plan. If she keeps breathing long enough.” Fallyn followed directly behind him, the Badari spread out to flank them.
The hallway was empty. Limping slightly but carrying his prisoner with no trouble, Reede kept going in the direction of the lab’s landing field.
The team took the corner carefully, Darik at the point leaning out far enough to expose the tip of his blaster and get one eye on the potentially hostile area. “Team of security guards barricaded at the other end of the hall. The men look like walking corpses, don’t know how they’re standing , much less planning to fight. The landing field is out the door behind them.”
“Put your weapons down,” Reede shouted. “I’ve got Enishiggama.
If you want her alive, let us pass to the flyers.”
Coughing, the captain yelled back in defiance. “We’re not letting you escape with our scientist. Surrender peacefully and hand her over to me and there won’t be any retribution.”
“We have a standoff then. I’d don’t trust the word of a Khagrish.” Reede retreated smoothly, Fallyn shifting with him, and took shelter in a doorway. The rest of the squad deployed to watch the area in front and guard the rear.
“We’re running out of time,” Enishiggama yelled feebly as he set her on her feet against the wall, keeping her boxed in with his body. “I have to get back to the lab and finish making the medicine or we’ll all die, don’t you understand?”
“Don’t worry, doctor,” the Khagrish captain said from his position just ahead. “I finally did the right thing and called the main lab to get medical assistance. Reinforcements will be here soon. I was promised help by friends I trust.”
With a burst of energy, Enishiggama wiggled past Reede and landed in the corridor, eluding his grasp and making it into the extension of the corridor. Reede, Fallyn and the Badari followed, weapons trained on the guards. Raising herself to a semi sitting position the scientist shrieked at her security detachment. “You did what? Idiots, they’ll destroy us and incinerate this facility. I warned you! Even your so-called friends in the security forces aren’t going to risk contracting mountain fever.
Uncertain, the man captain bit his lip, his hold on his sidearm wavering while his clearly disconcerted guard force murmured amongst themselves.
Standoff, Jill thought to herself.
“How long ago did you call?” Enishiggama asked with surprising force in her voice. “Never mind, call the main lab back. Tell them you made a mistake. Get Dr. Gahzhing on the com and I’ll swear It’s not mountain fever. He’ll listen to me.”
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