On Mission

by Aileen Erin

  A man vomited on the ground, on himself, and I forced myself to look away.

  “This is heartbreaking,” Amihanna said, and I felt instantly guilty.

  That wasn’t my first thought. That wasn’t what I was feeling.

  I’d been trying to ignore the stench and get through this, and she’d been worried about the people.

  This was why I needed her. She made me better. She made me think harder and look at problems in a different light.

  I considered what we could do, but I wasn’t sure it would be enough to make a difference. “If this were our country, our planet, our people, we could absolutely help them. But the best thing we can do is approach the Yhona diplomatically with what we’ve seen, and—”

  I spotted someone entering a building. Someone that didn’t belong here. He was moving too fast, and his clothes were clean. He looked fit and in shape, and obviously didn’t live here. He must’ve been coming for the black market. We had to follow him.

  In all the alleys, there had been doors and ways to get inside, but we hadn’t actually seen anyone enter any of the buildings. I wasn’t sure if they were meant for more squatting or if they were left empty and unused since this group of people moved in.

  This was the first door that was used. It was also the first time I’d seen anyone move quickly with a goal in mind.

  Which meant we had to go in there.

  I signaled to Ashino who sent the orders through the guards. We were following that man. We were going inside.

  I let Ashino go in one step ahead of me, but not by much. If there was something dangerous beyond the door, I was more than capable of destroying it. But I wanted to see what it was like before anyone noticed us.

  The smell went from a nauseating mixture of bodily odors and fluids to all that plus the smell of rotting flesh. There had to be dead bodies hidden in here somewhere, but there wasn’t enough light to see very far inside.

  I could feel the scent on my skin and tried to force myself not to inhale deeply, but that wasn’t working.

  “What is that?” Amihanna covered her nose, and I didn’t feel so awful about my thoughts.

  “I’ll give you one guess,” Roan said.

  I stayed quiet, letting them whisper to themselves about what they were seeing while I scanned the area, trying to find the man I’d seen entering the building, but he’d disappeared.

  Goddess, help me find the way. I wanted in and out of here as quickly as possible.

  The building was massive—with large cement columns supporting the structure. There were corridors and sections that opened up when we turned a corner.

  The inside had some makeshift tables set up here and there, along with rusted chairs that looked like they might fall apart if I sat on them. There were so many small groups of people—no more than five each—huddled together. Some were buying things, some were sharing food, but all had the unwashed, unkempt, barely-surviving look to them. None of the things being sold at the tables were black market. It was old food and drinks and rags, all as dirty as the person buying them.

  I tried to keep focused on my surroundings even though I wanted to block it all out. I wanted desperately to leave, but I wasn’t leaving until we had what we needed.

  We hit the end of the cavernous room and I turned around.

  “There’s a stairway over there,” Tyler said. “Might be that whoever you’re tracking took them up a level.”

  I didn’t want to think that there were more levels of this. I wanted to believe that this was all that could be held here. But Tyler was right. Every building in the alley had been cloud-scraping tall, including this one.

  Amihanna was hanging in and her skin was bright. Roan was looking a little sick. His ever-present smile missing. Audrey was leaning against Tyler and his arm was wrapped around her tight, as if he were keeping her moving. It must’ve been painful for a healer to look at this and not help. Even though Audrey’s bloodline wasn’t strong enough to show her fao’ana on her arms and back, she was still a healer. That ability was an ingrained instinct. The bag slung across her body with supplies to help the sick was almost always with her.

  This place was truly dreadful, but we didn’t have time to do anything to help right now.

  I signaled to the guards. Stairs. Up.

  They didn’t look pleased. Small stairwells were not an ideal place to get into a fight, but what choice did we have?

  As soon as we entered the stairwell, the urge to leave grew stronger. It was filled with bodies, and from the stench and their complete lack of movements, I wasn’t sure all of them were alive. We carefully stepped over and around them, and found the first door locked. So we went up to the next level, also locked. And another, locked.

  We kept moving up and up, and thankfully, the people in the stairwell lessened the higher we went, until we reached the top floor—sixteen.

  We pushed on the door, and it opened to the roof.

  The fresh air was so nice and clean, but that wasn’t why I wanted to cheer when I exited the stairwell.

  The rooftop was half the size of the cavernous room on the ground floor, but three quarters of it was filled with clean tables and shiny objects. People—all nicely dressed from various races—meandered between and around them. Others haggled loudly with the people at the tables, buying whatever was being sold.

  The last quarter of the rooftop was taken up by a landing pad. Currently, a small transport ship was descending onto it.

  This was the black market.

  I looked over at Audrey. “We’re looking for anything that could be a lucole weapon—it should look like a modified Earther weapon—or even lucole crystal, powder, whatever you think might be a form of it. The powder that hurt Amihanna was gray, but anything black should be considered suspect. I assume you have a testing kit in your bag.”

  She tapped the pack at her hip. “Yes. Fully stocked.”

  “Good.” With any luck, we’d make one pass through the market and leave. We could be up in orbit within the hour, maybe sooner. “Keep an eye out for anyone that might be SpaceTech. Any Earther is suspicious.”

  Amihanna huffed. “Searching for SpaceTech is ingrained in my soul. I’m always keeping an eye out.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I hated that it had been necessary, but I was also grateful and proud that she’d survived.

  “Should we split up?” Amihanna asked like it was a sane question.

  But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a sane question. My future bride had lost her mind. “I’d like to see you try to split away from me at an unknown illegal market where SpaceTech operatives might be waiting for us, who know that you’re poisoned and have the means to kill you quickly without engaging in a fight.”

  “Jeez,” Amihanna said. “Overreacting much?” She tried to make it sound funny, but it wasn’t funny.

  Nothing about this was funny.

  The last time she was in a market without me, she was poisoned and nearly died. I was determined to make this trip go better, when I knew in all likelihood it could go so much worse.

  Fynea was right. I should’ve sent her into orbit.

  What was I thinking letting her come with me? Why was I risking her right now?

  Amihanna put her hand on my arm. “If you left me behind, I would have found a way to get here on my own.”

  I took a breath. I believed her. It was just the thing she’d do, but I couldn’t help but worry. “And that would’ve been stupid. Going anywhere without me right now would be stupid.”

  “Yep. That’s why I’m here with you.” She gave me a patient smile, and the panic strangling my heart eased a little. “Look at it this way, at least now you can keep a close eye on me the whole time.”

  “Right.” Though it didn’t make me feel better. “Stay by my side. No wandering off. No leaving. Nothing without giving me warning first.”

  “You got it. I made that mistake once, and I won’t do it again.” She motioned me toward the tables. “You lea
d the way. I’ll stick by you.”

  “Good.”

  We made our way through the maze of tables, watching what everyone was selling. There were weapons of all kinds, but none that took the bullets that the Earthers liked to use. We kept moving until we came across a table of medicines. None of them looked like lucole, but Audrey cleared her throat, and I paused.

  “I’m going stay here and look at these. Some of them look gray, and I just want to be sure nothing here is lucole or anything that could neutralize it.”

  That made sense. “I’ll leave four guards with you.”

  Audrey gripped the strap of her bag and stood taller, as if that would change my mind. “I don’t think we need—”

  Tyler put his hand on her shoulder, cutting her off. “We’ll take them,” Tyler answered for her. “Thank you.”

  Audrey looked like she was going to argue, but then she looked around the market. Her lips pressed tight and she turned back to me, giving me a short, curt nod.

  Good. I was glad both Audrey and Amihanna were seeing reason tonight.

  I kept moving. “See anything that reminds you of home?” I whispered to Amihanna. I was familiar with Earther weapons, but I hadn’t been back to Earth in a very long time. She would spot anything way before I ever could. “Anything that could be a weapon from Earth or a—”

  She gripped my arm. “No way.”

  No way? What did that mean? She wasn’t seeing something that reminded her of home? Or was she? That sounded like she saw something, but it was a no.

  Her fingers dug hard into my arm and I knew she’d seen something. When she didn’t say anything else, I tried to see what she was staring at. “What is it?”

  “I see someone I know.”

  That seemed highly unlikely. “A friend?” I knew it wouldn’t be, but I had to ask.

  “No.” She dropped her hand from my arm and slid her hands into her pockets. “Not a friend.” She hadn’t pulled her faksano out, but she was readying for a fight.

  “Who?” Roan asked from behind us. “Anyone I know.”

  She glanced back at her friend and then stepped closer to me, making room for him. “Yep.”

  “No shit.” Roan started scanning the tables. “I don’t see anyone I know.”

  “You will. It’s been a while, but I think you’ll remember him when you see him.” She looked up at me. “We have to go over there. I have to check this out.”

  “I know.” I signaled to the guards. Enemy. Follow us. Possible trap.

  This is exactly how she was lured away from her guards at Ra’mi—an officer she knew from jail. One who hadn’t been kind to her.

  I wanted my hands free, which meant I couldn’t hold on to her, but I wasn’t letting her get ahead of me. Not even for a moment. “Show me.”

  She glanced up at me. “This is definitely a trap. If he’s here, then SpaceTech is here, too. They’ve got to be mixed in with the crowd, but he’s the trap. All I can see right now is him.”

  “I agree that there have to be more here, but we have guards—” Ashino and Eshrin were on either side of us, but there were more covering us. “—and we know it’s a trap, but we need that sample. The last trap had lucole bullets. It worked before so Jason will use that tactic again. This time, we take the bullets with us.”

  “Then, let’s go.” Amihanna veered right.

  I moved quickly to keep pace beside her. It was difficult as she wove through people, around tables, but then she stopped in front of a table loaded with items for sale.

  There were some funny colored mushrooms in jars, a few tree fungus bits in others, plus some blueish-red weeds in bags. It looked like natural mind-altering drugs from various planets, but Amihanna wasn’t looking at the jars or their contents. She was looking at the man.

  His skin wasn’t quite as dark as Roan’s, but almost. And yet I could still see the dull red markings—tattoos—in geometric patterns on his skin. He was definitely an Earther, but an Earther on the tall side who worked out a lot.

  What was an Earther doing here?

  “It’s you,” she said.

  He looked at the exit, at me, at the guards, and then apparently having realized there was no getting out of this, he held out his hands. “It’s me.” And then he dropped to a crouch on the ground, and when he stood up, he had a weapon in his hand aimed at Amihanna. It didn’t look like the one that Caleb had warned us about that would activate the lucole, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I lifted up my hands to destroy him, but Amihanna put her hand on my arm. “No. Not yet. His hand’s shaking. He doesn’t want to hurt me. He knows that we’re the only hope of saving everyone on Earth. He’s just scared. Aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am! I shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to be here. And… You’re—you’re—you…” His weapon dipped just a little, and Amihanna darted forward, ripping it from his grasp and handing it to me without looking away.

  I stared at it, but I had no idea what it was or what it would do, so I passed it behind me, knowing that Ashino would be there to take it.

  A fraction of a second later, it was lifted from my hands.

  Good. That’s done.

  I wasn’t sure what else he had under the table.

  Roan snapped his fingers. “Now I remember you. The alley off Constitution and Fifth. What was it, Am? Seven months ago? Longer? How you been, man?”

  This wasn’t a coincidence. He was here not to kill her, but to keep her here.

  We were running out of time.

  Amihanna shook her head and looked at me. She did one signal.

  Trap.

  Yep. We were on the same page.

  There was a crack that echoed through the rooftop, and I didn’t have to look to know that every Aunare guard was now armed and ready for a fight.

  “I don’t know.” Amihanna carried on the conversation as if she were clueless about the trap we’d knowingly walked into. “It feels like a century ago, but time is messed up right now. It’s been a weird year.” She sighed like we had all the time in the world. “What I want to know is why a Rojo is here on Telnon?”

  “Rojo?” I asked, playing along while we waited for SpaceTech to make their move.

  “A gang.” Roan had seen the signal, and he wasn’t an idiot. By joining in on the conversation, he was playing along, too. “It’s a big one with ties all across North America. You can spot ’em by the red geometric tattoos. They all have them. But this one had a run-in with us. He was arrested. And now he’s here?”

  Arrested and now here? When Amihanna was here?

  It was almost too obvious for SpaceTech, but if it worked once, why not do it twenty times?

  While I waited for the attack, one thing kept running through my mind.

  Fynea had been right. I really should’ve sent Amihanna into orbit. It was too easy to set off the lucole in her blood. Anyone here could have one of those small devices in their pocket.

  Nothing was worth risking her getting killed.

  Nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  AMIHANNA

  It was a trap. I knew it was likely from the moment we heard about the black market. SpaceTech loved a black market for their goods. It meant they were selling at an exceptional price. If they were keeping the number of lucole weapons allowed out to the barest minimum that meant they’d sell even higher at a black market. They’d love that. And since I was poisoned, they knew that I would be looking for a sample. Of course I’d show up here. They had to have a trap ready for me. That’s what made the most sense.

  But I knew it was a trap the second I saw that Rojo.

  I’d stopped his assault on a young girl—Hillary. She’d ended up in my class after the attack, but the incident landed him in jail. I didn’t always call the cops, but I did that night. I always called the cops on anything I saw that involved underage kids.

  I was trying to think of how long it’d been. I’d thought it was more than a year ago, but I was wrong. Now
that I was thinking of it, Roan was closer with his seven months guess. It probably was even less than that. Hillary had been in my class for less than a month when Declan showed up.

  The night I’d met this guy in a dark alley came back to me, and I wondered what had happened to him to have that big, tough guy now shaking in terror behind the table.

  I could tell he was afraid before he started shaking, but the shaking kicked in a minute ago, and I knew something had changed. Something bad was coming. This guy was bad news. Guys like this didn’t get this scared easily.

  “They let you out of prison to lure me here?” Because the last I’d heard, he was supposed to be behind bars for at least the next five years. No matter how much time had passed since that alley in Albuquerque, I knew for sure it hadn’t been five years.

  He swallowed, but didn’t answer.

  Did he think I was going to kill him? Was he scared of me?

  I didn’t think so. This was just one guy. SpaceTech would never send just one guy to kill me. Where were the rest? I needed to look around so that I could find them but turning away from a man that likely had at least one lucole weapon would’ve been a mistake.

  “They knew the sight of you would draw me over here.” It wasn’t a question. That’s what they’d done with Officer Hill. They’d keep doing that same plan until it stopped working.

  He gave one nod.

  He didn’t look happy to be here, which meant that something had happened while he was in jail. SpaceTech didn’t like to give stuff out for free. They took. They didn’t give. “They threatened you. They have your family? A friend? Someone?” There wasn’t much I could do to help whoever SpaceTech was holding, but I had to know who was in danger.

  “My kid. They have my kid. I fuck this up, and she’s dead. It’s you or her and now you have the weapon and she’s screwed.”

  Damn it. “You have a kid?” Of course he had a kid.

  That was my weak spot. Maybe it came from being so helpless and afraid as a kid on Earth, but I hated that SpaceTech used people like this. They didn’t care. There were too many people anyway. What was one death? Especially when that one death got them me.