White Fire

by Laurie Bell

  “Yeah, well, if she dies—”

  “Someone’s coming,” Berni interrupted.

  Measured footsteps approached. The cell opened and the two guards stormed in. Grabbing Toni none-too-gently by the arms, they and dragged her into the corridor.

  “Have fun,” Berni called before the cell door slammed shut behind them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Toni dropped to the floor when the guards released her, her heart racing. She drew in a breath and climbed to her feet. Don’t show any fear. “Nice place you have here.” Expecting the Dober to knock her back to the floor, she slouched her shoulders. When he didn’t move, she peered around as though visiting the local zoo. There was a camera mount in the corner of the ceiling, and several darkened panels in the walls. Screens or cabinets?

  Two men and a woman waited patiently for her.

  Oh Xendia!

  It was impossible not to react. Her mouth dropped open. Zaambuka? Zaambuka here and …?

  The posture was different. The blank expression on the man’s face sent a shiver down Toni’s spine. She steadied her body but couldn’t tear her stare from his face. The mouth, the hair, the eyes … oh the eyes. The same and yet … there was no response, no twitch of recognition.

  “Sit down, won’t you?”

  There it was. The difference. Too high and nasal. Not him. But so close. Brothers? They had to be.

  Toni needed to breathe, needed a moment to think. She started walking. What the Khegh is going on here?

  The woman Toni recognized as the Nymph from The Reef sat regally in one corner, a slight smile lifting her lips into a sneer. The other man was grinning at her as if he’d won the holo-lotto. Dalmith’s scalp was fully bald, his once neat beard bushy and unkempt, as if he were overcompensating. His muscles had muscles now. He grabbed for Toni when she stepped too close and she skittered back at the suddenness of his move. He was covered in tattoos, and not the pretty picture kind. They were thick, black marks that circled his muscles, making them seem even larger. He froze when the Zaambuka lookalike raised his hand. So, he was in control. Who is he? Toni continued to circle the room as if she owned it. Her belly flipped. Fear tightened her chest. She hoped the tremble in her hands had gone unnoticed by her captors.

  “Good evening,” Toni said as she passed the Nymph. The woman was disinterested in Toni’s examination, instead eying her fingernails, gleaming silver in the harsh light.

  “I’d like to complain about the state of your guest rooms. Your staff were not at all pleasant, and room service was over three hours late.” Toni might as well get this party started. She stopped in front the suit and looked him up and down. The fabric looked expensive. Same likes. It was eerie. She glanced at Dalmith. He vibrated with barely contained anger.

  Not-Zaambuka glanced at the guards positioned on either side of the door and waved them out. “Sit down, won’t you, Agent Delle?”

  “I’m good, thanks for asking,” she replied and sucked in a short breath. There’s no air in here.

  Not-Zaambuka stared directly into her eyes and stepped forward, looming over her. She could count the number of hairs in his plucked eyebrows. Waiting a beat to see if he would say anything else, she reluctantly lowered her body into the empty chair placed in the center of the room. She crossed her legs.

  “Agent Delle. My name is Gallian. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Her heart stopped. Gallian? Zaambuka lied to her. He had to know Gallian personally, if they were family. Why had he never said anything?

  “What did your friend find in that locker?”

  Toni watched Gallian through hooded eyes. There was an air of danger surrounding him. She had the feeling she wouldn’t get away with any of her usual baiting tactics here. He wouldn’t rattle easily. A voice in the back of her mind told her she wouldn’t like it when this man became angry. They were so similar and yet so different. Zaambuka had never scared her like this man’s very presence did.

  Dalmith moved to stand behind her. His silence was getting on her nerves. Before the Carpathian prison, he’d been impossible to shut up. His silence was far more ominous. The longer he remained out of her sight, the greater the tension in her shoulders grew. Gallian leaned down into Toni’s face. The cloth of his trousers brushed her knees, and it was all she could do not to flinch at the contact. She felt Dalmith’s overheated presence press close to her back. Looking up into his eyes, she schooled her face to remain stoic and breathed as normally as she could manage. Her head swam. Gallian and Zaambuka?

  A giant hand landed on her neck. Thick fingers dug into her skin. She chomped down on her lip, refusing to cry out as the fingers squeezed. Dalmith pulled his hand away and then slapped her across her face. Her head snapped back, her face burning with the strength of the blow. She gasped, holding back tears.

  “Oh we’re going to have a lot of fun, Agent.” Dalmith’s breath ghosted across Toni’s neck.

  Gallian clucked his tongue. “I will not ask you the question again.” He turned to the Nymph. The woman held a force-syringe. The tip glinted.

  Toni’s heart skipped.

  “I will get answers from you, Agent Delle. If you prove resilient to Ralinna’s drugs, then I will allow Dalmith to continue with his exercise. I understand agents are well-trained. We could be here for a while, wouldn’t you say?” Gallian strolled to the wall furthest from Toni’s chair. She watched as he pressed one of the panels and a small cabinet opened beneath his palm. From inside, he removed a decanter and a glass.

  Dalmith pinned Toni to the chair and began to laugh, his sour breath hot in her face as the sting of Ralinna’s needle dug into Toni’s flesh.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Toni flopped around on the bunk, unable to find a comfortable position. Her arms felt like plasteel, her stomach did the Chalinga, and her head pounded as though a hovercraft compactor had crushed it before molding it back into shape. Moaning pitifully, she buried her face in her arms. Light flared behind her eyes like a thousand pins. Playing over and over in her mind was Gallian’s face morphing into Antonio Zaambuka. To block her mental anguish, she focused on the conversation between the two smugglers.

  When their words became clear and she understood what they were saying, she rose onto her elbows and raised her voice so the fool in the next cell could hear her. “That’s a stupid idea!”

  “Toni, khegh it. It’s the only way.”

  “For you, maybe.”

  “Hey, hey!” Berni interrupted, her voice loud enough to be heard over their argument. “Give it a rest, you two.” She lowered her voice once she had Toni’s attention. “Enough planning for now. I’m bored. You’re awake. Why don’t you tell me how you and Dan met?”

  Shenghi. “Ask him.” Hadn’t Berni said she knew Tone. She’d been interrogated by Gallian—why hadn’t she said anything about their appearance? Toni’s spiraling thoughts returned at the press of Berni’s thigh. The woman shifted on the thin mattress.

  “I did ask him. He wouldn’t tell me.”

  Toni laughed, though it hurt to do so. “Wouldn’t tell you?”

  “No. I couldn’t get it out of him.”

  “Then what makes you think I’ll tell you?” She rolled to face the smuggler. She didn’t want to give voice to what Colten had done to her—it messed with her need to pretend it never happened.

  “I reckon it would really tick him off if you did tell me.”

  Toni snorted, groaned, and rolled back the other way. No matter which way she moved, parts of her ached.

  “What’s going on in there?” Colten called when they both fell silent.

  “Nothing,” Berni called back. She dropped her voice again. “Go ahead.”

  Oh why the khegh not. “He’s a smuggler. What is there to say? I questioned him on Nizlec Six. He got away from me there, but I followed him to the Shetii System and shot out his TAFF drive. He hid from me in the lower atmosphere of the second moon around Jatele, you know it?” Berni nodded. J
ust thinking about it brought sharp cramps to Toni’s empty stomach. I was such a fool back then. “Those stormfronts played havoc with my sensors. I saw an eddy hit his ship, and some sort of electrical discharge hit me. I lost power. We both went down. I ended up on one of the islands. I thought I was alone, but he found me after the crash. I dropped the bounty. End of story.”

  Her mind flew to her missing friends. Had Gallian’s mercenaries found Mate? She imagined a technician somewhere pulling Zach apart. Her heart ached for her electronic partners. The smuggler’s questions reminded her of how very alone she was.

  “There has to be more to it than that,” Berni demanded.

  “That’s it.” You’re not going to hear the rest.

  “How long until you were found? The second moon of Jatele is uninhabited, isn’t it?”

  “We salvaged enough parts off my ship to repair his.”

  “How long?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?”

  Toni closed her eyes and clamped her lips shut. Her refusal to answer further questions was obvious.

  Either Berni didn’t get the hint, or she didn’t care. “So, what happened?”

  “We …” Toni paused trying to think of the best way to put it. “… worked together.” She said the word together with such distaste that Berni dropped the subject. For about two minutes.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Look, I was injured, barely conscious most of the time. We got the ship repaired and then he left.”

  “But you don’t exactly like each other now. So, what really happened?”

  “He left me behind,” Toni admitted after a long silence. Her throat tightened at the thought of this woman knowing her pathetic story. This normal-skinned woman who he had chosen to work with when he’d told Toni he always worked alone. Another lie.

  Toni forced herself to remember how long it had taken to rebuild the shattered emergency communication radio with her one working arm, wrapped up like a mummy to protect her skin. To remember the pain that made her sick every time she was forced to use her arm to collect enough wood for the fire that ultimately allowed the searching agent team to find her. It worked, and her anger burned away any lingering emotion.

  She could still feel the smuggler’s stare on the back of her neck. When Berni spoke, her words were soft, as though she hardly believed them herself. “He left you?”

  Toni didn’t answer. She wondered if Berni would think differently of Colten now or if she’d support his decision.

  “He’s an ass. He shouldn’t have left you alive.”

  “What?” Toni rolled over instantly and pinned the woman with a glare. “What did you say?”

  “Bern, what are you talking about in there?” Colten called from the next cell.

  “Your friend seems to think pissing me off is the right thing to do. Maybe she thinks I’m in too much pain to do anything about it,” Toni called out.

  Colten fell silent.

  Berni stood. “You’re an agent, I’m a smuggler. We ain’t gonna be friends.”

  “Not seeing a problem with that right now.”

  “I’m just saying. Did you think three weeks playing house was going to change him? He is who he is. And look at you. You don’t exactly blend in, if you know what I’m saying.”

  Oh, she knew alright.

  “He has a type, sweetie. And you’re not it.”

  Toni barely hid her flinch at the smuggler’s poisonous words and climbed to her feet. With one step, she stood toe-to-toe with the woman. “He lied to me. He shot me.”

  “He missed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Three Dobers burst into their cell. “All right, just relax,” White Streak ordered, leveling his pistol at them. Berni didn’t move. She didn’t even glance in their direction.

  Toni lay slumped against the cell’s bed cataloguing each guard’s stance. Her face stung where the smuggler had hit her. What was probably blood rolled down her nose. “Bitch.”

  “Really?” Berni drawled. Toni jerked her arm back when she sensed the woman standing over her. Berni grabbed Toni’s shirt and dragged her to her feet. Toni hung heavy in the woman’s grip. Out of the periphery of her vision she could just make out the guards surprised expressions. Berni drew back a clenched fist and drove it into Toni’s stomach. Her breath burst out of her. Toni doubled over, clutching at her belly and groaning weakly. She spat on the floor. The liquid speckled with red. Great.

  Swaying, Toni dropped to her knees. Berni dug her fingers into Toni’s chin and shook her fist. “Watch what you call me in future, Agent.”

  Sagging forward into Berni’s one-handed grip, Toni guessed the smuggler’s next move as her fist flattened into an open palm. The slap snapped her head back sharply. The smuggler punched her again.

  Khegh it all to hell. Hurry up, boys.

  “Jah, what do we do. Let ’em fight?”

  “Break it up,” White Streak—Jah—snapped, waving his pistol around.

  About damned time.

  Colten called out, “Ah, let them go. This has been building for hours. You should have heard them half an hour ago. Shenghi, even I learned some new words.”

  “Shut up!” Jah snarled. Colten fell silent.

  At this rate, Berni was going to cause some real damage. Come on boys. Jah snapped his fingers at the thin Dober behind him. “Tige, get her out of here. Mah, help him.”

  “Khegh off.” Out of the corner of Toni’s now blurry vision, she could see Berni struggling against the hand that clamped onto her arm. Mah grabbed the smuggler’s other arm and yanked the woman backward.

  Jah bent down in front of Toni. Without Berni’s hold, she let her body sway and collapsed into the Dober’s legs.

  “This is none of your business. Let me go!” Berni fought wildly behind him.

  “If I were you,” Colten’s voice piped up from next door again, “I wouldn’t get involved.”

  Toni sagged heavily in Jah’s grip. She waited until the guard’s attention switched back to Berni before she flicked her fingers. Berni’s struggle became more vicious, but instead of pulling away from her captors, she pushed into them with a loud battle cry.

  At the sound, Toni straightened and pushed into Jah’s knees. The quickest way to drop a Dober was to get them off balance—their thick bodies didn’t adjust well to a sudden change to their center of gravity. The injuries Berni had inflicted may have been mostly superficial, but the wounds from Dalmith sent ribbons of pain radiating through Toni’s body as her hand connected with the guard’s face.

  When Toni regained her feet, Berni shoved further into Tige, pushing them both into Toni’s path. Toni stumbled back as the Dober cried out. Berni slammed a heel into his toes again. Wrenching her arm from his grip, Berni spun and hit Mah in the face with both fists.

  Toni stopped paying attention to the other woman’s fight, suddenly busy with her own, wrestling with Jah over his pistol. Using her shoulder to twist his arm against its natural bend, Toni reversed her pull and shoved the weapon to the side as his finger depressed the trigger. A tile on the ceiling exploded. Toni kicked out, her foot catching the side of his knee with a crack.

  He lost balance. Toni twisted and kicked out again, this time aiming at his jaw. She caught his neck instead. He collapsed, coughing harshly and clawing at his throat with his free hand. Toni wrenched the pistol from his hand and smashed it across the guard’s temple. As he fell, she turned to the other woman, ready to shoot if required.

  Berni still struggled with the remaining guard. Tige lay crumpled at her feet, clutching his face and moaning softly. Berni shoved at Mah and lashed out. Her fist was caught in mid-air. The guard spun her around and pinned her arms to her sides in a bear hug.

  Gasping as air was squeezed from her lungs, Berni stomped on his foot and rammed her head into his chin. She twisted and punched Tige, who was climbing unsteadily back to his feet, in the face. He fell back as Mah grabbed at her again. Berni writhed but
was held fast. “Are you just going to stand there watching, Agent?”

  Toni, panting lightly, shrugged. “I’m good.”

  Berni slithered within Mah’s sweaty arms, turned, and headbutted him with all her strength. She stumbled, sucking in great gulps of air as he fell to his knees beside her. Berni grabbed his head and kneed him in the face. He fell back, but didn’t collapse.

  “Seriously?” she gasped. “Just go down!” She looked at Toni. “A little help?”

  “Doesn’t look like you need it, but if you insist.” Toni slammed the butt of her pistol into Mah’s head. He collapsed as the younger Dober, his underdeveloped neck ridge an indication of his lack of maturity, rolled to his knees. Berni jammed both hands into Tige’s neck. He lost consciousness and slumped to the floor beside his partner.

  The smuggler looked up, smiling. “Who would have guessed we’d work so well together?”

  The idea of it sat like a stone in Toni’s belly. “Don’t ever say that again,” she said. “Did you have to hit me so hard?”

  Berni stared at her. “Well, what are you going to do?” Her look was a familiar one. Determined yet intense, and it didn’t quite hide the fear deep inside. It was the same look Toni saw every time she looked in a mirror.

  She sighed loudly, her shoulders drooping. “I’ll drop the bounty.”

  Berni grinned, pausing only long enough to grab the weapons off the two guards. She shoved one into her waistband and powered the other.

  Toni spun on a heel and limped out of the cell.

  “Hey, how’d it go?” When no one answered, Colten called again, “Ladies?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Toni peeked around the corner. Releasing a silent sigh, she crept back down the corridor toward the smugglers. Her leg ached—all of her did—but sore muscles didn’t stop her brain from functioning. “We need to check this out,” she hissed.

  “We can sneak past,” Colten mouthed.