Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two

by Loren Rhoads

  “Were you working on Kai, too, like Mykah and Coni?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I was there with some friends as a tourist.”

  “Pricy,” Mellix said.

  Raena laughed. “One of their fathers was an arms manufacturer back in the day. My friend sold the business to the Coalition and now she’s retired.”

  “You don’t mean Ariel Shaad, do you?”

  Raena’s skin prickled with a sudden chill. She kept her face neutral. “You know Ariel?”

  “I know of her. One of my colleagues did a feature on her work with war orphans.”

  “Raena is one of the beneficiaries of her foundation,” Coni supplied.

  “She knew my mother, back before the War,” Raena said with what sounded like perfect honesty. She was curious to know if he remembered that the “first” Raena Zacari had been a slave in Ariel’s family, but he didn’t mention it, so she didn’t either.

  They had eaten the stir-fry Mykah prepared and thrown away the dirty dishes by the time Mykah was finally summoned to escort Vezali past the checkpoint. When she arrived at Mellix’s apartment, she was a furious flame orange like Raena had never seen her before.

  “They confiscated our groceries,” Mykah reported.

  “What?” Coni snapped. “Why?”

  “No food into the evacuated zone, they said,” Vezali answered. “They scanned everything carefully, triple-checked my manifest … They even took Haoun’s worms.”

  “I heard from Control, too, on the walk back.” Mykah met Raena’s eyes. “Two standard days until we can get a time slot on the elevator. They absolutely do not want us to dock the Veracity to the outside of the station.”

  “I thought they were in a hurry to be rid of me,” Mellix said.

  “Not if it’s going to inconvenience anyone,” Raena said.

  “We saved you some dinner,” Coni told Vezali, passing her a plate. “Come and sit down and relax.”

  “What are we going to do for two days?” Mykah asked.

  Raena had an answer for that. “You’re going to take Coni and Vezali and enjoy some shore leave. Stick together, though, in case they decide to bump up our exit.”

  “You’re going to stay here with Mellix?”

  “That’s what you’re paying me for,” she reminded. She didn’t say she would be more comfortable having only Mellix to protect. She could see, from the subtle nod Mykah gave her, that he understood that.

  He took off his jacket and removed a disassembled Stinger from an interior pocket. As he handed Raena the pieces, she snapped it back together. “I thought you didn’t like to carry firearms,” she said.

  “I don’t. I know how quickly one would get turned on me. Doesn’t mean I’m not licensed to have one.”

  Raena checked the charge. “Thanks, Mykah. I feel better now.”

  Coni changed the subject. “I don’t know if this helps or not. This anesthetic is rated safe for humans, but it’s got a salt in it that’s poisonous to most other life.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Mykah asked.

  “From the spa,” Raena answered.

  “You went to a spa?” Mykah asked, surprised. Raena laughed, but Coni swatted at him.

  “Then maybe you don’t need this now.” Mykah went to retrieve his satchel from its place by the door. He came back to hand her a carafe of clear liquid.

  “What is it?” Mellix asked.

  “Sleep drops.”

  Coni typed that in, already researching it. She handed Raena the handheld, so she could read the entry. It was a street tranquilizer generally considered safe for most life forms.

  Mykah said, “You want to start with one drop in a cup of water. It should conk you out for a couple of hours. See how you feel afterward and then you can judge if you want to up the dosage.”

  “Having trouble sleeping?” Mellix asked.

  Raena nodded.

  “I’ve used it sometimes, when I travel. It’s very gentle.”

  “Do you think it would be too strong for the kiisas? They might be happier if they can sleep through the transfer to the Veracity.”

  Mellix nodded unhappily. “I know they won’t like being in the crate.”

  “Let me show you what I brought,” Vezali said as she set her plate aside. The animal crate was a wonder. It stood a good meter high and a meter and a half long, easily the biggest of the boxes they had to bring with them. It was fitted with a water bottle, a kibble dispenser, and an enclosed litter pan.

  “It even has some gravity,” Vezali said. “It’s probably larger than your kiisas need, but it will give them some room to roll around in, if we get held up getting off the station.”

  “Why don’t you get it stocked for them?” Raena suggested to Mellix. “We can leave the lid off, so they can get used to it.”

  Mellix bustled around, doing just that.

  Mykah took Raena aside. “You’re sure you don’t want us to stay?”

  She smiled at him. “It would be good to have you at my side,” she said quietly, “but I don’t want to have to worry about the girls. Go have fun. Keep to the tourist areas. Busy places. Don’t get lured off to visit any hot new underground clubs.”

  Mykah laughed. “Understood.”

  “Maybe it’s nothing,” she added.

  “I hope so.”

  After her crewmates had finally gotten themselves out the door, Raena opened the crate that had her name on it. It only held two things: her new, very black spacesuit and several rolls of black cloth.

  “Mellix?” Can we gather all your crates together in here?”

  “It’s going to make this room pretty much impassable.”

  “We can leave a walkway. Let’s just get things organized so the most crucial stuff is all together in a block. I’m going to slave-cloth it all together, so we won’t lose anything.”

  “You’re going to what? I haven’t heard it called that in a long time.”

  “What do they normally call it?”

  “Viridian cloth.”

  “But that’s what the Viridians designed it for.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  She could see him thinking, but she refused to back down. “We were talking about topics we could tackle, aboard the Veracity. The others said that slavery was too big a topic for us.”

  Mellix noted, “You sound angry about it.”

  “My mother was a slave,” she said. “Before I was born.”

  Mellix said, “The sort of slave trade the Viridians engaged in is less prevalent now than it was in the past. But there are still mining prisons and indenture systems that are tantamount to slavery. It seems like a valid subject to explore.”

  “Thank you,” Raena said simply. She hoped he could persuade Mykah.

  They rearranged and stacked the crates until Raena had built a fairly solid wall across the front of the apartment. She left a narrow passageway: big enough for Coni to get through, she told Mellix. She didn’t mention that it was narrow enough to be a choke point. If he understood what she was doing, he didn’t question her.

  “Where are we on the station?” Raena asked. “I got all turned around coming here past the checkpoint.”

  “They call this the Heights,” Mellix said. “Before the evacuation, it was a professional neighborhood: doctors, network executives, lawyers, media personalities.” He walked over to the wall and pressed a switch. The wall shivered upward to reveal the sky beyond. Starships glittered against the stars, in orbit around the station. One of the gates was visible in the distance.

  “Is that a view screen?” Raena asked.

  “No, that’s the view. I’m on the outside edge of the station.”

  “It’s lovely.”

  Mellix let the wall drop back into place. “I’ll miss my view. I wonder if I’ll ever come back here again.”

  “Any regrets?” she wondered.

  “Of course not. The shipbuilding cartels knew about the tesseract flaw for years. They’ve been working in
secret to figure out why every so often a ship is lost, but they weren’t going to reveal the dangers because too much money was at stake. Someone had to let people know the risks they were unknowingly taking for someone else’s profit. Someone had to do it, even if the personal cost was high.”

  Raena nodded to show she agreed, but she couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound patronizing. Eventually, she settled on, “Is your assistant going to be safe?”

  “She’s out on assignment. The network sent her away before we broadcast the tesseract announcement, so she’d be disconnected from the news.”

  “Probably for the best.” Raena let the silence stand briefly, then said, “You might as well try to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Thank you for this,” Mellix said. “I understand why Mykah is risking so much—and Coni. They’re idealists. But you seem much more pragmatic.”

  “I suppose I am,” Raena admitted. “But the Veracity took me in when I had nowhere else to go. They gave me a home. I owe them for that.”

  “Were you with them when they went to the Thallian homeworld?”

  “Yes.”

  He waited a moment, but when she didn’t say anything more, he smiled, revealing even white teeth. “I’m going to sleep better, knowing you’re here.”

  The station was so silent around her that it was easy to believe it was deserted. Raena kept herself moving so that sleep couldn’t settle on her. She gathered Revan’s coat, Mykah’s satchel, and the toys for Haoun’s kids and tucked them into the crate with her spacesuit.

  Then she used the rolls of slave cloth to wrap the stacks of crates into blocks. The kiisas watched her, but wouldn’t let her get close enough to pet them.

  Eventually, she got up to fix them a dish of water. She opened the carafe of sleeping drops, dripped a single droplet onto her gloved finger, and flicked it off into the sink. Then she swirled her finger in the water dish and set it on the floor.

  She poured a glass of water and put two small drops into it. That she carried into Mellix’s room. She left it on the stack of books abandoned beside the bed.

  When she came back out, the kiisas were tumbled over on the floor like balls of fluff. She picked them up one at time to check their breathing. Each one seemed softer than the next, like some kind of creature out of a children’s story. Raena held the last one to her cheek, then tucked it gently beside the others inside their crate. She set the beacon on Coni’s handheld and stood it up on its edge, so she could clip it to the side of the crate. Then she rested the lid over it, leaving it slightly askew so the kiisas could breathe.

  It was late now. Raena stepped out of her high-heeled boots and put them in the crate with her crewmates’ treasures. Then she shimmied into her beautiful new spacesuit, checking all the seals as she went. Once she had the boots clipped on, she messaged Haoun, just to have some company.

  “Lonely?” she asked.

  “Surprisingly.”

  “Where are you out there?”

  “I’m out near the Berryessa Gate, bored out of my mind. There are only so many levels of Black Hole I can play.”

  Raena didn’t know what that was, but she did sympathize. “Can you lock onto my signal and find me on the station? I’m curious what the place looks like from the outside.”

  “Flight Control probably won’t like it, but sure. Let me come around.” He fell silent while he eased the Veracity out of its parking place near the gate. Finally, he asked, “What’s going on down there?”

  “It’s really quiet. Mykah and the girls have gone dancing.”

  Haoun cut across her. “No, there’s a crew outside the station. It’s too many for a repair crew, unless they’re doing a massive overhaul. They’re headed your way.”

  “How many?”

  “Looks like thirteen. Some of them have pulse rifles slung over their backs.”

  Raena went back for Mykah’s Stinger, which she’d left on the sofa. She pulled out one of the spacesuit’s tethers and tied it to the gun, which she tucked into the back of her belt.

  “How far away are they, Haoun?”

  “They’re almost on top of you. I’m coming! I think I can get a clear shot …”

  “Absolutely not,” Raena snapped. “Under no circumstances fire anywhere near the station.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked more soberly.

  “Message Mykah. Tell him to get the girls to the elevator vestibule and stay there. I’m out for now.” She switched the comm bracelet off, peeled it from her wrist, and wrapped it around her belt.

  Pulling the spacesuit’s gloves on, she went to wake Mellix.

  She touched the journalist’s shoulder. “Get up,” she said quietly. “Trouble’s on its way.”

  Mellix slung the covers back and sat up. “I don’t have a spacesuit,” he protested.

  “You won’t need one.” She handed him the glass of water from the stack of books. He drank it without question. Raena took his compliance as a token of his faith in Mykah.

  “Where are the kiisas?” he asked, his voice loud in the quiet darkness.

  “Already packed up,” Raena promised.

  He finished the glass of water, handed it back to her empty. She could see his eyes already glazing over. He snuggled back into bed.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Raena picked him up and carried him back into the front room. She nudged back the lid to the kiisas’ crate and settled Mellix down amongst his pets. He mumbled something in protest, but she ignored him. She latched the lid down and switched on the crate’s atmosphere and gravity. All the telltales blinked a happy blue. She grabbed a roll of slave cloth and muffled the lights.

  Time to move fast. She pulled the spacesuit’s helmet on over her head, latched it, and switched on its heads-up displays. She double-checked all the seals and toggled on the pressurization. Then she clambered up atop one of the stacks of crates. The gap between the top crate and the ceiling wasn’t large enough for her to sit up in. Good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic any longer.

  She switched on the mask that canceled out the hiss of her breathing, so that all she could hear was the steady, solid thump of her heart. Once she was settled, she threw a book at the wall control, so she could admire the view.

  She hit the wall control on the first try. The guy setting the charge outside the window jumped back when the window screen went up in front of him. He lost his purchase on the station. Lucky for him, he was tethered to the next guy in line.

  That struck Raena as a good idea. Moving slowly, she unzipped another of her suit’s tethers and fastened it to the box she lay atop.

  An impressive number of rifles were trained on the window. Raena wasn’t sure if they could see in, but she was comfortable where she was. Eventually everyone outside relaxed and stepped back into place. They reeled the initial bomber back in and he got back to work.

  There seemed to be an exorbitant number of charges, Raena thought. If they were terrorists, laying down terrorist-sized explosives, this whole side of the station would be rubble, including the honor guard outside. That suggested that instead these were professionals, setting up tiny charges: enough to pop open the window while doing minimal damage to the expensive real estate nearby. Raena wondered if someone had already closed the blast doors around Mellix’s apartment, sealing them in.

  The pest control crew seemed unnecessarily large to capture one pacifist squirrel. Even if they were armed to take down two humans, Coni, and Vezali as well, they were still massively overstaffed. Either they didn’t know the kids had gone clubbing, or they thought that Vezali’s crates had been full of weapons. Either option pointed suspicion away from Capital City’s Security Force. Raena breathed deep in relief. Her borrowed Stinger wasn’t going to fend off the station’s private army.

  The crew outside all stepped away from the window. Raena spread out to hug the crate beneath her, trying to relax.

  The window popped. Everything in the room got sucked out into space. There
was a chaos of klaxons and debris and flashing red lights. Showtime.

  Raena waited until the boxes she was strapped to rotated. Half the team had gone into the apartment. The other half waited outside, rifles at the ready. The demolition crew was already packing up their equipment and getting ready to walk back to the maintenance hatch where they’d come out of the station.

  She was moving away from them fast, but it didn’t take long for them to establish that the apartment was unoccupied. She watched the helmets turn in her direction.

  The Stinger was a sporting weapon, meant for hunting in atmosphere. It would fire in space, but its range was limited. She waited for them to come to her. Once she began to fire, she would have no cover.

  Ten soldiers. She counted them down, firing at rocket packs, guns, boots. These were just guys, doing a job. No need to kill them, if she could dissuade them. Besides, Mellix hadn’t wanted her to do them any permanent damage.

  Unfortunately, her initial judgment had been correct. These were professionals. Those that could returned fire.

  Raena flung herself forward, changing the momentum of the crates she was strapped to. The whole set of them started to tumble.

  She got the Stinger up and ready, because when the boxes came around, she really was going to have nowhere to hide.

  Someone landed on the other side of the pallet. She couldn’t hear him, but she felt the crates begin to spin a different way. She was ready when his helmet popped up over the edge of the crates. Too bad he wasn’t.

  She made a grab at his rifle, but it was tethered to his arm and she didn’t have time to cut it loose before the rest of the team came at her.

  Two of them fired on the crates, but missed her. She puzzled over that, then realized her matte black suit must be hard to see against the black slave cloth. They should have waited until she came around to face the lights of the station. By the time the third one figured out where she was, it was too late. He was too close for her to miss.

  The last one had lost his weapon. The scorch where she’d hit it smudged the front of his armor.

  She got the knife out of the top of her left boot. When he swung for her, she slashed his glove.