by Anna Carven
Hissing in pain, she rose to her feet. Her left ankle gave way, forcing her to put all her weight on her right foot.
That’s when her link-band chimed.
“Accept,” she commanded, her voice wavering. She didn’t care who it was. She was stuck on a stranger’s balcony, machines were trying to kill her, and her ankle was busted. She just needed to talk to someone, anyone.
Only her closest friends had access to her personal link, anyway.
“Set to open mode.” Her audio-buds were long gone. She’d stashed them in her handbag, and that had fallen into the void.
“Riana.”
“Sarge?” Relief coursed through her as Arin’s rock-steady voice came through the link.
“I’m not your CO anymore,” Arin said gently. “Is everything okay?” Perhaps she’d noticed the strain in Riana’s voice or heard her slightly ragged breathing.
“Sort-of,” she whispered, glancing around furtively. She shook her head. “Not really. I think someone’s trying to kill me.” Levi-pods and auto-gates didn’t malfunction by accident. Their inbuilt safety mechanisms were too robust, and Riana wasn’t one to believe in coincidences.
“What?” Arin’s voice turned hard. “Who’s trying to kill you, Riana? Are you in danger at the moment? If someone’s threatening you, you need to call Enforcement right now. Do you have a weapon within reach?”
Typical, practical Arin. She was already trying to come up with a plan of action.
Riana gripped the metal railing of the balcony. The apartment she’d landed in front of was identical to the hundreds surrounding it, but its thermoglass windows were dark.
Nobody was home.
“Hold on just a minute, Arin.” With trembling fingers, Riana switched channels on her link-band. “Darius!” she snapped.
There was a pause, then: “Y-yeah? Riana? What’s up?” His voice was thick, as if he’d just woken from sleep.
“I’m on the balcony below ours. Fortieth floor. Can you please come down and get me? Don’t summon the levi-pod. Use your air-scooter.”
“You’re below?” His tone was laced with confusion. “What the hell are you doing, crazy sister?”
“Just get your ass down here, Darius. I’ll explain later.” The bitter cold was seeping through Riana’s Syntech gloves, her ankle was throbbing like crazy, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her.
“Be there in a sec. Hold on.”
Riana switched back to Arin’s channel. “You there, Sarge?”
“I’m not—” Arin sighed. “Never mind. What’s your status, Riana?”
“Freezing, but intact.” A mechanical whoosh made her pivot on her good foot. Riana’s eyes widened in horror as the levi-pod re-appeared, its transparent doors sliding open to reveal a man wearing a black Syntech thermo-suit and a ski-mask.
Riana froze, terror coursing through her.
“Riana, are you there?” Arin’s voice filtered through to her as the man stepped forward, the auto-gates sliding open to admit him. He was encased in black and completely featureless, with even his eyes concealed behind opaque datalenses.
“Riana?”
“What do you want?” she demanded, risking an upward glance. What the fuck was taking Darius so long?
The man didn’t say a word. He stepped forward, his precise movements broadcasting his chilling intentions. There was no doubt in Riana’s mind that this man planned to kill her.
She was confined to the icy balcony. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She had no weapons. She could barely walk.
“Riana, are you there? What’s happening?” Arin’s voice filtered through the link, fading into the background.
Scrambling backwards, Riana forced herself to move, ignoring the repeated stabs of agony in her left ankle. She reached the front door of the apartment and slapped her hand repeatedly against the door-panel, hoping someone would respond.
Nothing. The lights were out, and no-one was home.
Her attacker advanced. Riana pressed her back against the wall in an attempt to support herself. She could barely stand; the pain in her ankle was so bad she was close to blacking out.
“This place is under surveillance,” she warned him. She didn’t know it for sure, but she assumed a large complex like this would have some level of monitoring. “We’re being recorded as I speak. You try anything and Enforcement will be here any minute.”
“I’m alerting Enforcement right now!” Through the link, Arin’s voice was sharp and laced with anger.
The masked man didn’t seem to care. He stepped forward, faceless and implacable. Riana slid her hand under her scarf, unwrapping it. She wasn’t sure what she planned to do with it, but it was something she could hold onto, something she could wrap around both hands and use to choke the guy, if she got lucky.
Although Riana had picked up some skills during her stint as a peacekeeper, she wasn’t a kick-ass bad-ass like Arin. She could shoot a gun with reasonable competence, but she wasn’t a hardened fighter. Still, she had to try something.
“Hurry up, Darius,” she muttered under her breath. “If I die here, I’ll fucking kill you, little brother.”
The man lunged at her, his hands outstretched. He was going for her neck.
Riana tried to evade, but her attacker was bigger, faster, and stronger than her. With her scarf stretched between both hands, she attempted to loop it over his head and around his neck in a clumsy effort to choke him.
He ignored her attack, his hands closing around her throat. He squeezed. Riana’s ankle twisted again. She gasped and choked. Her vision started to blur. She couldn’t breathe. Panic set in, oppressive and paralyzing, its dark tendrils infiltrating her mind, her limbs, her chest.
She was going to die.
Naked fear gave her a sudden, unexpected burst of strength. She managed to get her scarf over the man’s head, pulling the ends tightly as she tried to strangle him.
But there was no strength in her arms, and the pain in her ankle was excruciating. She fell to the ground, momentarily causing her attacker to loosen his grip.
Riana gasped for air, her chest heaving.
That’s when a figure rose from behind, wielding something long and blunt.
Thwack. There was a hollow, metallic thud as Darius’ baseball bat connected with the assailant’s head. The black-clad man went down, and her little brother kicked him in the guts twice, just to be sure.
Riana looked up, relief washing over her as Darius rushed to her side. “What took you so long?” she said, her voice hoarse. Through the fog of pain, she took note of Darius’ ridiculous appearance.
Her baby brother was wearing a long white faux fur coat over nothing but a pair of black satin boxer shorts, leaving his chest and legs bare. His normally tame dreadlocks were wild and disheveled.
Riana trembled with the aftershocks of terror, even as her eyes narrowed at Darius’ outlandish getup.
“It’s Erika’s,” he said by way of explanation, waving his hand dismissively. “You called at the wrong time. I had to put something on. I’m about to freeze my nuts off out here.” Darius shook his head. “Forget it. What the hell happened? You’re hurt? Can you stand?” He offered her his hand.
“Y-yeah.” Riana reached out and allowed Darius to haul her to her feet. A surveillance drone shot past, its scanner beams momentarily flashing in her eyes. “I’m guessing Enforcement will be here at any minute.”
Darius let out an unhappy growl. “Let me get you upfloor. I’ll deal with the cops.” He stared at her for a long, hard moment, his brow furrowing in concern. “What the hell have you gotten mixed up in now, my crazy big sister?”
“I have no idea,” Riana whispered, staring at the slumped body of her attacker. That wasn’t entirely true. She had her suspicions about why someone might want her dead, but there was no way she could share that information with Darius.
Riana had a bad, bad feeling about the whole thing. Whoever was behind this was sop
histicated and well connected.
Very specific knowledge was required to hack into a secure levi-pod, not to mention overriding an auto-gate’s safety mechanisms, and it wasn’t as if she could just log onto the Networks with her Citizen ID and search for the trace.
The Board of Corrections would rain hellfire down upon her.
She’d been tagged, tracked, injured, and almost killed. Earth had become almost as nightmarish as her encounter with giant killer insects and Kordolians.
Almost. But nothing was quite as terrifying as running from killer aliens.
“Riana, are you safe?” Arin asked, her frustration bleeding through the link. She was probably aching to intervene; the former sergeant was always the first to get into the thick of things, but right now, there was nothing she could do. “Enforcement have logged a disturbance. They should be there any minute.”
Sure enough, a shrill siren split the air, growing louder as Darius helped Riana onto his air-scooter. The sleek matt-black vehicle hovered in mid-air, roaring to life as Darius jumped on and hit the accelerator.
“I’m okay,” Riana shouted over the noise of the engine. The air-scooter’s powerful exhausts whipped the steadily falling snowflakes into a frenzy, creating a surreal vortex of white powder.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re mixed up in, but you need protection, Riana.” Arin’s voice faded into the background as they ascended to the forty-first floor. “You need to follow my lead on this.”
Protection? Who could possibly protect her if she didn’t even know who wanted her dead?
Chapter Four
“You need to listen to me, Riana.” Arin was back on the line. Now that Riana was safely inside Darius’ apartment, she could communicate with her friend through the holoscreen. Arin’s steely blue eyes roamed over Riana’s face, her lips pressed together in disapproval. “The Kordolians would benefit from your skills, and in return, you’d have the best protection you could ever hope for.”
“But there are only a few of them, and there are billions of us,” Riana argued as she reached out and gratefully accepted a cup of steaming sencha from her sister-in-law. “Do you really think a handful of Kordolians can track down someone who doesn’t want to be found on their home turf?”
You okay? Erika mouthed as she stared pointedly at Riana’s left ankle, which was now bound in an inflammation reducing brace. A quick home Diagnostikit scan had revealed it to be badly sprained, but not broken.
Riana nodded sheepishly. To her relief, the crazy white faux fur coat was back with its rightful owner. Erika Tanaka was comfortably cocooned in the garment, having stolen it back from Darius. Miraculously, she’d managed to tame his wild dreadlocks and get him into a rather respectable grey suit before sending him out to deal with the Enforcement officers.
On the surface, Darius was the wild one, but it was Erika who really called the shots.
Arin’s lips curved into a wry smile. “You didn’t see half of what I saw on the Hendrix II, so just believe me when I tell you that I still don’t know what can kill a Kordolian. Nonhuman Affairs would have a total meltdown if they knew what I knew.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Riana shuddered.
“It is if you want to be safe from assassins.” Arin’s weird logic cut through Riana’s fear, infusing her with an odd sense of hope. Her heart fluttered and a strange tingle shot up her spine. She wasn’t sure whether it was trepidation or excitement.
“How can you trust them so easily?” Riana’s tone turned philosophical. She sipped her tea, watching her former CO carefully. “Are you sure infatuation hasn’t clouded your judgement?”
Her bluntness drew a laugh from Arin. It was a light, carefree laugh. She’d never heard the ex-soldier laugh like that. “Maybe it has. But after everything that’s happened, trust is a relative thing, don’t you think? The only thing I know without a doubt is that Rykal has my back.”
“And you think the Kordolians will somehow agree to watch my back?”
“They’ll protect you if you help us.” Us, not them. Ha. Her friend was in so deep.
“But I’ve already given you all the information I have. Scarabus Enterprises. That’s the entity that owned Fortuna Tau. I think they’ve done something terrible, but I have no proof.” Using her basic Network combing skills, she’d managed to unearth a few disturbing leads. The incident on Fortuna Tau reeked of both corporate and off-world interference. “If I try and dig any deeper, I’ll—” Riana hesitated. She’d done as much as she legally could, and that was before she’d been banned from the Networks altogether.
Arin didn’t know about the restrictions Corrections had just placed on her. She didn’t know about the monitoring chip or the Network ban. There were ways to get around the restrictions, but that would mean going back into the Underground, and for someone like Riana, who had a fucking monitoring chip in her arm, that was a dangerous prospect indeed.
No more dangerous than being hunted by unknown assassins, though. The cogs of logic began to grind. “What do I have to do?” Her tone was resigned.
“Take a vacation.”
“What?” It was confirmed. Arin had a screw loose.
“The North of Africa is nice at this time of year. The sun still shines in winter. Take a private grey flyer from somewhere. It’ll be on me. I’ll arrange everything. You just have to get there safely.”
“But why North Africa?” She had so many questions, but Arin was being intentionally obtuse.
“Lights out, Riana.” That was peacekeeper talk. It meant hide your tracks. Be invisible. That was pretty impossible when the Federation had implanted a surveillance chip in your arm. “I’ll explain everything later. It’s not as if he can just jump on the public skyflyer and make it to Neo Tokyo on his own.”
As far as she was aware, going on a holiday wasn’t a violation of her micro-surveillance conditions, as long as she filed a notification with Corrections and stayed within the borders of the Federation. All she had to do was get there without getting killed.
And then what?
Would the Kordolians be waiting for her there?
And did she really have any choice in the matter anymore?
“This is fucking nuts,” she muttered under her breath as Arin’s expression softened.
“We need your help, Riana,” she pleaded. “You’re the only person I know who does this kind of stuff, and you know what happened on the station. What if the people behind the explosion try and do it again? More people could die.” There was something sincere and compelling in her voice; it was the kind of warm, unshakeable conviction that had enabled Riana to trust her as a commander and a friend. “Once you have a Kordolian by your side, nothing and no-one on this Earth will be able to touch you. Promise.”
“I guess—” The thought of having an invincible protector was rather alluring. It was an impossible, tempting fantasy, but it was too good to be true.
Because there was always a catch.
“Hell, I’ll come over and pick you up myself,” Arin growled. “I’ll be your temporary bodyguard until he reaches you. They might be watching my every move, but there’s no law against visiting friends. Just stay where you are. I’ll be there in three hours.”
Darius burst through the door then, bringing a draft of frigid air with him. “Cops say the surveillance footage from the last fifteen minutes is blank. By the time they got there, that asshole was gone, and I didn’t want to say too much. They’re treating the callout as a false alarm.” He brushed fresh snow from his shoulders. Erika came up beside him and he put his arm around her waist. They were both looking at Riana with narrowed eyes. “That is really, really strange. I don’t like it. We have to get you out of here until we can figure out what the fuck is going on.”
Riana looked at her bandaged ankle, then at her brother’s face. Darius wore a skeptical frown. “You’re not getting involved in Underground stuff again, are you?” He sighed. “You still owe me for bailing you out from those debt
collectors. I got a lot of shit from the Boss when she found out I’d taken a side trip to Europe.”
“I swear it’s nothing like that. I haven’t been involved in that business for years.”
“This wasn’t just a freak accident, though.”
“No.” Riana couldn’t deny it, and deep down, she knew that Arin was right. She needed protection, and the best protection on this planet could only be provided by someone who was completely outside the system.
There were a handful of individuals like that on Earth. Right now, they were in the deserts of Naea, fighting Xargek.
“Guess I’ll have to take that vacation after all,” Riana said wryly, earning an odd look from Erika and Darius.
Chapter Five
“I am to travel with Humans?” Kail shook his head, crossing his arms. They were gathered inside one of the box-like dwellings provided to them by the Federation. He declined Torin’s offer of a seat, preferring to stand. He waved Nythian away, refusing the cup of steaming bitter liquid that was thrust before him. Coffee, the Humans called it.
It wasn’t an unpleasant tasting drink, but Kail wasn’t in the mood. “Send someone else. I will stay here and do double duty in the catacombs.” He glanced across the room. For some reason, Rykal’s Human mate—the military woman—was sitting in the corner, scrutinizing him with blue-eyed intensity. Kail ignored her. Rykal was beside her, having escaped from the dusty confines of the underground tombs with three fresh kills to his name.
Rykal’s hand rested possessively on her thigh. Kail shook his head in disbelief. Rykal was completely smitten with her, and he was more than happy to broadcast it to the world.
Unbelievable.
Jeral was there in the shadows, cleaning his swords. He sat alongside Arkan, who was munching on some Human version of dried meat.
“But you’ve been assigned,” Nythian said in Universal, presumably speaking the common tongue for the Human’s benefit. The younger Kordolian arranged himself on a low seat, putting his feet up on a small ottoman as he claimed the coffee for himself.
