by Pam Uphoff
"Are you originally from Icefire?" she asked. "I never could place your accent. I wondered if you'd traveled a bit as a child."
"I was born in Imperial City, but we moved so much when I was a kid, I figure I've lived just about everywhere." He puffed himself up and kept talking about his favorite subject. "Icefire Met's not bad, but I think Ice Cap South is my favorite city."
He was easy to keep talking and hard to physically avoid. With grim determination she refrained from leading him into one of the dangerous areas she'd scouted before and kept him talking. "Gee, that's not very many carts for all the guards you've got here." She commented. "Is one of them yours?"
Scowl, "No, the company owns them all. I drive one regularly out on the surface, of course." Yep, Mr. Ego had twisted that one around instantly.
"How do you manage to not get lost?" she asked innocently, pointing out the windowed walls. "It's just so totally open, with no tunnels or signs."
"Oh, we just head west until we hit this big canyon and head south. You can't miss Daeda, there are piles of rock everywhere, from building some new farms last year." Blozolli frowned suddenly, "But there's not enough air in the carts to get there, so don't do something silly, you'd die quick out there." Right, like she couldn't see the compressors added to every cart. "The surface," he pontificated, "is incredibly dangerous."
Raelphe rolled his eyes. He knew she went out all the time. She shook her head and he turned his attention back to Silver and Gold, who were subdued and guardlike in Blozolli's presence.
Satisfied with what she'd learned, and tired of fending off his attempts to get close, she steered them subtly back to the main building and back upstairs.
G'sele and Traveler were still sitting on the dining patio. Traveler was reading something on a mini comp, G'sele looked frustrated. The two new fems were at the far side eating, both still facing G'sele.
Xaero wandered over to talk to G'sele, not that she thought he'd tell her anything, but she didn't want to be private with Blozolli. The Supreme One had said something about 'two days', so would he be back tomorrow? Unfortunately she didn't see anything she could do except wait. Perhaps after tomorrow they'd let down their guard and she'd have an opportunity to get Raelphe away from here.
Chapter Seven
Xaero woke instantly when she heard the rattle of the lock and hasp. She was pulling herself out of the bed pit and reaching for the war club before Blozolli was through the door. She hesitated, not wanting to show the club before Blozolli was in reach. No doubt at all that he'd be armed.
In the dim light she could see he was carrying . . . clothes?
“Hey, L’svages. You still sleeping, babe?” The sound of Blozolli sounding tender was enough to turn the strongest stomach. As he walked closer to the windows and the moonlight fell on him, she could see he was wearing the most ridiculous third century overcoat she’d ever seen. There were at least five collars, and it swept past his feet to the ground.
“Uhh.” With that as his only invitation, he quickly came up to her bed pit.
“Look, babe. I brought you a couple of presents.” Xaero quickly floundered the rest of the way out of the softness of the bed pit, her grip on the club tightening. But Blozillo wasn’t making any threatening moves—he was holding up the new contender for most ridiculous third century overcoat. This beauty had twelve collars in various sheens of metallics and a train that would easily cover her tail. “Here, let me help you slip into this.”
“Look, Blozolli, just what do you think you are doing?” What a stupid question. She knew exactly what he thought he was doing; but a sense of unreality enveloped her. Scenes like this belonged in sloppy romantic trash novels, it couldn't actually be happening, could it?
“Just taking care of my lawyer,” he whispered, circling the bed pit, as she scrambled out. He tried to nip the back of her neck as he slid the overcoat around her, but just got a muzzle full of spine points. “I know what all you pseudofems want, and I’ve got the means to make you very happy.” He pulled a hypo out of his pocket.
Gah. Like she needed more hormones!
"Fem, you are looking good in those collars.” His own collars seemed to be rustling with his own reaction. Her own frills were flat and her spines stiff and defensive.
“Babe, we need our lawyers, and I want to make sure you go back to the firm completely happy. If this doesn’t work out . . . ”
“If what doesn’t work out?” Xaero snapped.
“Well, we’re doing a little operation, here, and I’m in charge of the . . . you folks, as well as some key maneuvers tomorrow night. But I don’t quite trust the bozos in charge. If they try to make me the scapegoat, then I’m gonna need my lovely litigator to bail me out. You seem a little tense, babe.” He moved around the bed to massage her shoulders, which put him in a perfect position for a sucker punch with her club. She made contact with that certain, critical breathing muscle attachment spot between the fifth and sixth ribs on the right side and he collapsed, wheezing.
He should be out with oxy starvation for a couple of splits with that one, she hoped, and she quickly gathered everything into her briefcase except the club and set them outside the door. She eased the big male out of his overcoat, and took her own off, and put it with the briefcase. Blozolli had not bothered to remove the key ring from the padlock hanging open on the hasp. The security up here was definitely sub par, she mused, locking Blozolli in. Would she continue to be so lucky? She went over to Raelphe’s room, and could hear moanings and groanings from inside. She grabbed the padlock, hoping one of the other two keys would . . . it was also hanging open. She opened the door.
“Whozit?” a startled female voice called out.
Taken aback, she answered, "Xaero L'svages.”
“Whaddya want,” slurred another female voice.
Oh Sand! Just what she needed! "Raelphe, get up and get dressed. We're leaving."
"What?" He sounded a bit, umm, well about how she ought to have expected.
"We are escaping." she said, enunciating very clearly.
"Couldn’t you have waited a dozen splits before you rescued us?” His plaintive voice sounded clearer. “This was rapidly shaping up to be the most exciting night of my life, you know.”
"Sorry, but I had to grab the opportunity when Blozolli knocked."
"Where is he?" Raelphe staggered out of the room, dressed and reasonably alert looking. Gold and Silver trailed, looking half asleep . . . or oxy deprived or something.
"In my room, taking a nap."
"Ewwww! Aunt Xaero!"
"I knocked him out, for sand's sake."
"Oh, well, that's better." He grinned. "I won't even ask why he was in your room."
Thank water for that! Xaero looked at the fems. "Are you two going to try to stop us?"
"No way. We're coming too." Gold said. Silver nodded decisively, reaching for Raelphe's hand. Raelphi, apparently.
She found the key that unlocked G'sele's room, swung the door open and stepped carefully back. He was, after all, a Dim and presumably a trained fighter. He stepped out cautiously.
"We're escaping. First stop will be the basement to see if we can find the other lizards who are supposed to be incarcerated in their 'dungeon'. I have a hideous suspicion of who they're holding down there. Want to come?"
"The questions I'm pondering are, do I trust you and should I let you come," he retorted.
Xaero flicked a contemptuous spine at him, picked up her briefcase, the coats and her war club and headed across the jungle.
She nearly walked straight into one of the whip-and-chain pseudofems.
"Hey!" the fem yelled, grabbing for her pistol and getting tangled in her whip.
Xaero dropped the briefcase and coats and grabbed the fem, trying to throw her toward G'sele, but all she managed was to stagger her. G'sele pushed Xaero past the guard. "Run." He advised, sounding as bored as ever as he turned back to deal with the fem. Raelphe circled the pair at a safe distance, following her
. Xaero turned back to grab her briefcase and caught the flicker of motion in the corner of her eye and threw the club. It caught the second pseudofem on the knee, eliciting a yell and giving Raelphe time to grab her arm and force it to point the pistol away from the rest of them.
Gold and Silver jumped the guard from behind, punching and scratching, and when the guard tripped, kicking her with their absurd shoes. G'sele stepped in, relieved her of the gun and gave her a smart rap on the ribs with it. As the guard collapsed, Silver and Gold dashed over to Raelphe.
"Are you all right!"
"I thought she was going to shoot you!"
G'sele traded shrugs with Xaero. "Let's go before we meet anyone else," he said, leading the way. She retrieved her club, then snatched up her briefcase and the coats from beside the other unconscious guard and followed.
In the elevator, she once again pressed the six button. "There are stairs down from there that go past the lobby level. I figure that's the best place to start looking." She explained to G'sele. "The problem is that the second floor seems to be where the ordinary guards sleep." She shoved the war club back in her briefcase. Maybe she'd need it later, but G'sele and the pistols rather outclassed it.
"Aunt Xaero, are you sure it's a good idea to start an escape by heading for the largest concentration of Bad Guys?"
"No, but I haven't been able to check out any other floors, and this one didn't seem to have an alarm."
G'sele cocked a questioning eye at her. "How'd you check this one out?"
"I hit the 'wrong' button when heading down for my walk with Blozolli this morning. We took the stairs the rest of the way."
G'sele actually looked impressed, but snapped around, gun in hand, as the elevator stopped. The empty corridor was well lit. Xaero slipped quietly out and cracked the door to the stairwell. No one there either. G'sele gave her an exasperated glare, "Let me lead, for sands sake! I'm trained and armed."
Acknowledging that he had a point, she swept him an invitation with one hand, then followed a few steps behind him, Raelphe, Silver and Gold crowding on her tail and down two flights, passing up the exit to the lobby.
G'sele opened the next door carefully, then closed it and continued down. He took longer at level three, but moved on again. He froze at level two with his hand on the knob, put an ear to it for a moment and then quietly slipped on down. At the last level, he listened again, then waved them back and opened it fully. Xaero dropped everything and lunged forward when she heard the shots, then hesitated, and when no more sounded, very carefully looked through the doorway.
Two uniformed guards were sprawled face down in a corridor lined with glass, or more likely plastic, fronted cubicles. The first one held . . . not L'azlod or Traveler. The rest she saw held uniformed imperial guards.
"Great Sand Basin." Raelphe whispered behind her. "Is that . . . the crown prince everyone keeps talking about?"
"Yeah." She joined G'sele behind the desk, surveying the control panel built into it.
"Any of you know if there are any tricks or traps built into this thing?" G'sele was scanning the troops now pressed up against the doors. They were variously shrugging.
The lizard two doors down from the prince spoke up. "I've only seen them open one at a time, so don't risk the emergency release. Get Prince Fensteri out first."
"There's a two over his cell." Xaero told him, walking down past it. "Open six first." She nodded an apology to the lizard who'd spoken, "In case something does happen."
"Nothing is happening." G'sele started searching the nearest guard.
Xaero mentally braced herself and started on the other body. There was a plastic card in his coat pocket. "How about this?" She held it out to G'sele, who placed it flat on an empty spot that showed signs of wear. He pushed two buttons and cell six slid quietly open.
He kept tapping, and first the prince and then the rest joined them. The first lizard out had scooped up the dead guards' weapons, and taken a position at the stairway doors.
"There are voices behind a door one level up." G'sele shot over his shoulder, "We're at the bottom level, and need to egress at five, where there are usually two guards."
"You are?"
"Captain G'sele DMS." He left the console then, waving at Xaero and the others as he passed, "civilians and implicated idiots."
"Oh thanks." Xaero said. "Should have left you locked up, upstairs."
"You'd have been caught before you left the floor," he growled in return.
The troops ignored them, forming up ahead beside and behind the prince. "Standard evac drill, Fenni," the leader said as the prince nodded.
One lizard ushered G'sele, Xaero, Raelphe and the fems up behind the rear guard, and brought up the ultimate rear.
They all eased quietly past the next level and kept going. Xaero marveled at the silence of the dozen large males. There was more noise behind her from Raelphe and the fems than from the fourteen people ahead of her.
The leader stopped at the door to the lobby. "What will I be looking at, through here?" he was looking at G'sele, but Xaero answered.
"It's a hotel lobby, empty of furniture, sunken center with low railing. Built in checkout desk will be to your right across the room, about twenty strides. There's always been at least one guard there. There's frequently a second guard there or roaming."
He glanced dubiously at the gun in his hand. Close range only she wondered?
"Would you like me to barge out there first, a poor lone, undangerous fem?" Oh sand, did I just say that?
The officer looked at G'sele who nodded. "Yeah, act like you're trying to sneak out, try to get them close to us."
Xaero took a deep breath as she squirmed between the guards and up to the door. No point in waiting. She opened it quietly and slipped through, trying to be quiet.
The guard at the desk saw her immediately. His gaze went from her to the door and back. He whistled sharply, and she heard footsteps from the left. She bolted, running a few steps to the railing of the sunken area and turning left to run around it. She skidded to a halt as if surprised when she saw the second guard closing in, his original alarm fading as he saw her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the lizard from the desk closing up behind her.
She made a series of indecisive movements to stay near the stairway door, hearing but not even registering what they were saying. They closed in on her a bare two strides from the door. She 'slipped', falling flat and out of the way of whatever might come through the door, which turned out to be a pair of imperial guards. The REMs were unmoving on the floor before the rest of the guards were through the door.
They scooped the REMs' weapons, and split out into flanking positions, before waving all clear.
As Xaero climbed to her feet, the troops swept their prince through the lobby, out the doors and into the cover of the dark pathways with effortless ease and coordination. Xaero wonder how the REMs had ever managed to capture them all in the first place.
"Go right," she called, hustling after them. "Carts. Two guards, the two times I was there."
They wheeled like precision marchers and one lizard loped out ahead of them, presumably a scout, but when the shooting started, three more shot forward while the rest shoved the Prince into the bushes, their bodies shielding him from whatever might come. Xaero scanned the bushes, but they were all harmless.
The shooting stopped and barely audible whistles communicated something to the rest, for they moved out again, at speed.
Two more guards lay dead at the doors. "Try the drawer below the . . . " Before she'd finished the sentence, a guard had popped it open and was already fishing out keys.
There were three carts. It was going to be a tight fit.
The officer searched the area quickly, and parceled out the few breathing masks he found, leaving the spare oxygen bottles. The carts had conspicuous air compressors on their roofs, so the masks weren't actually needed at all. He pounced on a long gun of some sort and handed it to a trooper who donned a
mask and jogged outside.
"The town of Daeda is fifty kstridesks south, the space base is as far north," she said, nearly breathless at the speed at which they were whipping out of there.
The officer nodded. "Space base and more troops for us. Captain," he addressed G'sele, "why don't you take these civilians south and alert the local authorities? Twice the likelihood of raising the alarm."
The prince looked like he thought of protesting that, but then turned away to watch the troops outside examine the carts.
"This one has extra oxygen bottles," one of them called.
"We'll take it, and one other." Prince and guards were quickly loaded up; they backed all three carts out of the shed, then abandoning one. G'sele left the thick air of the greenhouse and took the wheel of that one at the officer's gesture, then the imperial troops and their charge were pulling out. The soldier with the long gun snapped off three shots high and toward the hotel, then slung his gun and boarded the second cart as it paused for him, then they were gone.
"Damn they're quick," G'sele said, as the fems rushed through the doors, hands over their faces as if that would help. Raelphe followed and Xaero brought up the rear.
As she started to open the far side door, she glanced back and up and saw the lights in the penthouse coming on. "They know we're gone. They'll find the dead guards downstairs."
"Get in!" Gi'sele snapped.
"No, I think I'd better watch and see what they try to do." She dashed back inside and grabbed the comms from the dead guards' belts. "Take this. I don't know the range, but I'll try to keep you updated on what's happening here. Go west to the canyon, then turn south and watch for rock piles from construction. There will be a ramp down to the town. Go."
G'sele looked at her in disbelief. "Are you out of your sandy mind?"
"Yes, get." She whipped back inside and into the dense foliage and half thick air.
Outside the cart suddenly spun away as G'sele gave up on her.
